It's Morning Somewhere!

This week was hard on our family.  We had some sudden things happen and it threw us all off.  My husband is working through some things from his military service that are really a long process now that he's out and medical care is harder to come by.  Our youngest son will get an MRI tomorrow afternoon for a mystery knot on his bottom.  We need prayers if you please!

I used to be wary of asking for prayer for myself or my family.  Somehow I thought that God didn't want to hear from me like that.  I never saw prayer as integral to my life, let alone to my relationship with God.  Now my perspective is different.

If prayer wasn't important why would there be verses like this....Pray continually(1Thess 5:17)...I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing(1 Tim 2:8)...Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful(Col 4:2)....In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express(Rom 8:26)

Prayer is the answer to our peace.  Peace...do you have it?  

I am busy, a wife, a mother, and completely human.  I am guilty of not making the time for the prayer life that I need or want. I also believe that prayer and study should happen together because you need to talk and listen...it is a mutual relationship after all, He wants to talk to you!   I am a work in progess, and slowly I am figuring out what I need to do to make all of this happen daily.

Something that I think has helped me figure a few logistical things out recently is people's honesty about their own quiet time and prayer.  More than one blogger I follow, and a man at our church even(who is a pastor too, but not over our congregation), has admitted to doing these things in the middle of the day or at night.  This was such a profound thing to me.  I had always thought that if I couldn't do it in the first hours of my day that I was a failure and didn't even try later....kinda like when you cheat on your diet a little, and then you throw in the towel.  This is not the case.

You know the saying, "it's 5 O'Clock somewhere"....I would like to think that no matter what time of the day it is where I am....IT'S MORNING SOMEWHERE!  So, grab your bible...and your coffee cup too, why not...and have your time with God!  Morning, after breakfast, nap time, break time, lunch time, after your husband gets home and you can steal a moment, after the kids go to bed, last thing you do before you go to bed.  Git'er done! 

I challenge you to find your time and do it daily for a week.  It doesn't have to be the same time every day, it just needs to happen.  I also ask that you would include my family in your prayers.

Love God, Love your Husband, Love your families
Nicole

Seeking Perfection in an Imperfect World

I have been making a great effort to keep my sink shiny, thanks to the flylady.  I have been getting her emails for a couple years now and I admit that I never paid enough attention to the actual process until now.  I guess kid #4 was enough for me to realize that I had help to get my home in order, I just wasn't using it to its full potential.

She makes a point in several of her email encouragements throughout the day/ week, to mention our problem with "perfection" being the root of our mess making ways and getting so overwhelmed.  I didn't really dwell on that point until last night.  I had been keeping things caught up and I had let myself fall into my habit of filling the sink and not washing as I went.  By the time my husband got home from college it was FULL and my anxiety level was starting to get high.  My very least favorite thing to do in my home is dishes and my husband has been kind enough to acknowledge this and work with it...meaning I cook and he does the dishes when he comes home, but my goal is for this not to happen anymore.  He was busy when he got home, and then he had homework and reading to do, but I could feel myself getting angry that he didn't drop what he was doing and do the dishes for me.  I stopped myself right there!  Perfectionism, this is exactly when it finally dawned on me what she meant.

Perfectionism keeps us from fully engaging in relationships, trying new things, and embracing the unknown parts of life.  It causes us to be disappointed in our new job after only a week, because the honeymoon has worn off and now it's officially become work.   It keeps us from praising our kids when they make one good choice during a really hard day of bad decisions.  It keeps us from seeing our husband as the man we married, instead of "just like every other guy", after a few years.  It is a damaging force that we allow to give us a critical spirit.

"I'm not a perfectionist."  You may not be a true perfectionist, but everyone wants something to work the "right" way for them.  It could be that you want your kids to be more like so-and-so's.  You have a spouse who takes a lot of patience on your part, and you feel like you are always the one carrying the load.  Guess what?  This world is not perfect.  Brilliant, right? 

Give yourself, your spouse, your kids, and the world in general a little bit of room for imperfection.  Stop planning responses before you can even do them.  Stop giving yourself a license to be disappointed in so many things, and begin to see the blessings. 

I have been happier, and my family has been too, while I have been following my own advice.  I still have a ways to go to have my household nailed down but I am taking it an inch at a time, and I think that is how we handle imperfection...an inch at a time, to keep our expectation from taking over. I saw this quote, and though I am not familiar with the author I really like it.

1 month down

One month down. We are in our new state, and still staying with my great-aunt and uncle.  This is not where we thought we would be.  We thought our house in Oklahoma would have rented already, that one or both of us would have a full time job, we would be in our own space and waiting patiently for baby #4 to arrive and my husband to go to school in the new year.  Not one of these things has happened, other than waiting on the baby and school.

I know that my family is getting anxious to see us go to our own house, and if we could we would.  I certainly never thought that we would end up "homeless" and depending on others to house us.  It goes against my sense of independence, and my husband's, but our babies are the reason we are working through the frustration and feelings of failure.

We were told that rest is coming, a time of rest?  This would be very nice!  And this week the kids and I are at my mom's house while my husband is staying with my aunt so he can go to work.  Lots of fear and worry have come up in me that I have had to battle hard over the last 24 hours.  Fears of history repeating itself, and my brain either making up or noticing similar "patterns" to the former circumstances....you know what I discovered once I rebuked my depression?

#1 God is guiding our path- there are things happening that would not be able to happen if things had been different this last month.

#2 God blesses those who bless others- we are mandated to share our surplus in the bible...Hebrews 13:16, 1 Timothy 6:18, Luke 3:11, Luke 6:38.  There have been times since our marriage that we have been the ones to bless others, and I literally just realized that we are essentially getting it back in our time of desperate need.

#3 God is keeping His promises....this could take a LONG time to explain all of the ways he is keeping His promises to us

#4 I cannot live by fear- I can't hang onto things so tightly that I shove God out of my way.  I remember telling this to my husband early in our marriage and now I am having to swallow my own pills.

#5 Maybe God really doesn't want me to work outside the home-After countless times of being denied employment recently and LOTS of family telling me that they are starting to believe that I may not be destined to have a job outside of the home, I am starting to believe them.  It would be awesome to know what exactly I should be doing to contribute financially, if anything, though.  So, be in prayer that God would reveal it to me.

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!

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.

Is everyone else's marriage hard, or just mine?

I've noted over the last 4 1/2 years that marriage is hard, but I do hear people asking if it should be THIS hard all over the place.

My husband surprised me the other day by telling me that he used to think that our marriage was too hard. That he felt that every marriage he saw was doing better than we were, and not having to work as hard at it as we were. His parents decade plus of marriage, which ended in divorce at 19 years. The marriages of his grandparents who were married 50+ years in 2012. Plus all the aunts and uncles he has. He said they all didn't look like they had to work at it, and I replied, "well, some of them weren't. But every marriage has hard stuff, they just don't tell you about it." When we got married and started butting heads on things, he thought that meant we were doing something wrong, or more pointedly I was too bull headed or wanted everything my way. Living only to have the chance to tell him "No" about something.

God changed his heart in the last few months. What brought the change nearly destroyed our marriage, but we are living in an attitude of restoration and forgiveness. It literally could only have come from God. I can say now, that our marriage is better and stronger now, even though it has been less than 6mo.

From my perspective marriage is hard. It takes more work than you will realize. The goal is not to cruise, but to share a life, and that means that one or both of you will hurt each other's feelings every now and then. Say things you don't mean, and irritate each other. Sometimes, the deepest hurt you could ever imagine becomes a glaring reality and you have to choose to fight or walk away.

The world makes it easy, get hurt...then leave, nobody has a long enough life to be "unhappy" at any point right? Wrong! Your husband can, and will, hurt you more than any other person in the world. Your love for him is, and rightly should be, far deeper than even the love you have for your own children. Quotes like this are pasted all over social media, almost like a daily mantra of people who want to be perceived as a more self-sacrificing, loving mother than they think they are.

 

I honestly am tired of these. They send a very pointed message. It's not "my children are important to me", it's "my children are more important than my husband." You may not see that, but that's what I see. Then, when people like myself choose not to post such things, and instead post....

 



Some how we appear pompous. This is the relationship that is under attack! Fight back! Odds are people are not going to openly attack your relationship with your children, but they will look for any chink in the armor in your marriage...trust me, we have survived it!

"But, my husband hurt me so bad!" Ok, it will happen. I will cry with you, but short of him harming your physical body, I will tell you to go seek your husband out and reconcile. He will hurt your feelings in ways that can send your heart crashing to the ground. Most of the time, he won't even know he did it. Or, a word from him can fill your heart with so much love you could choke on it. Your love for him is DEEPER. It's in your soul. It's meant to mimic Christ and the church, it's meant to be spiritual...My mom used to tell us that hurting a child's will did less damage than hurting their spirit. She was right, the same goes for adults. Give as much care to your spouse's spirit as you do your children. It's never a win when you battle your spouse.

So, to answer my own question. Is everyone's marriage hard, or just mine?...Yes, marriage is hard, and yours will have hard times too. Can you survive deep heart-shattering hurt? Yes, but you have to be resolved to forgive every single day. Days will be hard, and you will feel like your are drowning, but those will pass. Will there ever be an easy time? Once you both grow together, more and more, the easy times will be longer and will sustain you through the hard times.

If you are struggling, and feel that you can't live like this anymore, I ask you to be still. Don't turn your pain into a democratic vote to continue your marriage or end it by telling everyone what happened, and waiting to hear what they say. Don't ask your single friends, or those who are divorced and not remarried yet. Don't ask the outspoken woman's libber who has a vendetta against men. Ask the wise, someone with time and experience on their side. Someone who's marriage looks "easy" on the outside; I can guarantee that it hasn't been. Seek God, he is FOR MARRIAGE!

Grilled Cheese and Pickles

Today my lunch consisted of Grilled cheese and bread and butter pickles. I don't eat stuff like this unless...Morning sickness? Check! Growing Pains? Check! Yes, we are expecting our 4th baby. Our due date was determined via ultrasound....1/4/14....looks like 4 is the theme to me!

We have known for several weeks that we were pregnant, but their dates and my dates didn't jive.  So, last week I had a full scan, and voila 8week and 3 day old little bean with a nicely beating heartbeat.

Are we excited? Absolutely!

Do we know that 4 kids under 4 is going to be "hard"? Yes, but it will be worth it!

You might have 3 in Diapers! Yes, I have before, and I don't mind.

Won't that be expensive, how can you afford it? You afford what is important to you, we are not going to have two cars, or lots of toys, but our home will be full and so will our hearts.

Motherhood has taught me that these years are fleeting. What seems impossible or unimaginable to one mom is exactly another's dream. This is mine. Kids all over the place with my husband at my side. I may not get to have pedicures or girls days out every week. We may only get a date out when grandparents come visit. We may not get two vacations a year, but like I said before, time goes by so fast!

I just became a doula in training, and I have a newfound hope for this 4th birth. A new sense of what is important to me and my husband for the delivery. From my other three experiences, which I still think were good considering that I did have several medical interventions because I asked for them, I have learned a lot. This one will be just as wonderful, we will have another little blessing to hold and love, that is what this journey is all about. Love.

A love bourn out of sacrifice, pain, and labor. Something that only parenthood can bring in your life. Weather you gave birth to your own children, or were gifted them by God, you know what I am talking about. There is nothing easy about this. But, it will be worth it!

Original source of pic unknown

 I am excited to be overwhelmed; to have my hands even more full. To figure out naptime again. To go through baby clothes every couple weeks to keep up with growth spurts of the baby and worry about weather or not we have the next size up for the older ones. To hear the comments in public about our family, like they think I would take all this back if I could, or that I should be ashamed of myself...but I absolutely wouldn't and I'm not. I won't apologize for these little beings existence, they are gifts.

4 kids under 4...we are in for a wild ride!

Old Glory Flies Again

As my husband's separation date from the Air Force looms on the horizon, I am seeing that he really was made for this lifestyle, though he will leave it sooner than he hoped.

 He is determined...Ask me how long after we started talking when we met online in a Christian chatroom he knew he was going to marry me

He is honorable...he takes responsibility for his shortcomings, and does his best in other areas

He is full of integrity...If you look up integrity, truth is at the heart of it, though the definition in today's military has evolved to suit the needs of the moment, and sometimes not for the better

He's one of my Heros....I know lots of men and women in the military. Some have seen combat, some haven't but they all joined with the promise that if they needed to they would lay down their life. This last weekend he made if very clear to the whole community where his loyalty lies, and for his conviction I am honored to be his wife. Watch my husband as he goes on a personal mission to raise spirits in the best way he knew how.





He spent the day helping people and serving. Exactly what he loves to do. He told me before he left to go there for the day, "I may never have gotten to deploy, but this is just as important!" And I agree, this mattered to these people. If you listen to the men as they hoist the flag, there is someone in the background who likens the raising to that of the men at Iwo Jima. It may not be international, it may not have come from bombs being dropped, but a destructive force shook this land and the lives of the people who call it home. This is a symbol of hope, home, and security in the midst of some of the most trying days of their lives.

Sometimes all it takes is a little bit of red, white and blue waving in the Oklahoma wind to lift spirits....

F...What?

Confused by my title? Last night in the area where I live a tornado that ripped through towns, and missed us by only 10 miles left a mark on this state. It hit homes, schools, and hospitals. But, the death toll stands this morning at 51. 20 were children. They are waiting on confirmation, but the consensus is that it was an F5.

F5. This puts fear into anyone who hears it. This, according to the movie "twister" is so destructive they called it the Finger of God. Miles and miles of rubble, and if you look from above you can see a distinct line between the edge of the destructive force and everyone/everything that was barely missed. This is what you have to be underground for.

Almost 5 years ago I married my husband and moved to tornado alley. I had never imagined what a scary time it would be during tornado season, but it's terrifying! One little closet, and the 5 of us. This is not uncommon shelter here, and I believe that needs to change, especially for the schools. The children who died yesterday were kept at school and their parents, even if they weren't inclined to come and get them, were kept from because the rules state that no child gets removed from the school for any reason once the county is in a tornado watch. And they must stay there until the threat is past. The idea is that it is safer for them there than if they leave. Safer. Safer that those children took shelter in a hallway of a school, instead of a closet or a tornado shelter in their own home? Living here we all know that small spaces save lives, and underground is ideal.

I have seen, in the last 12 hours, the generosity of an area that I have felt was not overly friendly. There was a line, a LINE of headlights shown on the news last night of people waiting in the dark to make donations. People are giving up space in their homes and lives to help those who have been displaced. And the out pouring has not stopped.

You want to cry. For the people who won't see their babies or their friends and families again. For the people who lost everything including their home.

Then you want to thank God. That your family is safe. Your house is still standing. We were very fortunate. The storm passed us by mere miles. I may not always like this place, but it has been my home and the place where our children were born.

If you pray, do so for Oklahoma. This was the culmination of two days of storms. There will be a long road ahead for many here.

26, and an Unexpected Blessing

Today my new number is 26. I am now over my mid-twenties. But, as with my birthdays the last 5 years it doesn't really feel like my birthday.

I am an identical twin and in my head I always think "our birthday", so celebrating without my siter here has never been fun for me. But, the last time I felt like my birthday was actually celebrated was several years ago.

Today my husband got up for work at 5am. Got ready, and came back to say good bye...no "happy birthday". This is not the first time, the second time, the third time, or the 4th time that those words came from someone other than him first. But, I am trying to change my reaction to this, because it hurts.

My first instinct is to be really angry because I make such efforts for everyone else on their birthday, but that doesn't create peace in our home. It makes him angry that I am so angry, and then we argue. So, this morning I spent time looking for verses in the bible to pray during the day that will help stop my anger in its tracks.

Proverbs 10:12- Hatred stirreth up strife: but love covereth all sins (KJV)

Psalms 100:4- Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name. (KJV)

Titus 2:3,4,5- The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obeidient to their own husbands, that the word of god be not blasphemed (KJV)

I am trying to pray my way to a more peaceful heart today. and isn't it strange that in our blustery state we have tornadoes on the menu for our weather pleasure. I need to pray a lot today.

As I am writing this my 3 year old just shouted "Happy Birthday!" to me, twice. I haven't talked to anyone, or said anything about today being my birthday out loud. I was just pouring my heart out here trying to keep my frustration at bay. It instantly made me cry. How would my son know that I needed that today? In this very moment I believe that he was impressed by God to say it to me because there was no other way he could have known to say it to me today. Thank you God for talking to my baby and giving me that little encouragement today. I needed it.

Fishing with Daddy

There is nothing like taking a 3, 2, and 1 year old fishing!

My husband has been waiting for this day from the moment he heard "it's a boy!".

His favorite outdoor activity, and one he wishes his father had enjoyed, or sometimes tolerated, so they could spend time together. So, he is on his way to being that daddy now.

Momma packed a cold dinner of cheesey bread, pizza hummus, carrots, and fruit...daddy got the tackle ready.

...while earlier in the day mommy had picked up the casting net for the first time in her life, and after watching one YouTube tutorial, she completely OWNED it! Daddy has been trying to do it for over a year, and mommy helped him (I have permission from him to boast on my skills, haha). But, back to our sunset fishing picnic...

Load the tackle, check.
Load the kids, check.
Load the food, check.
Hit the road, check.

Our firecracker spent his time throwing things into the water like daddy with the net...and so did mister sassy-pants. Pepper girl and mommy watched and ate our dinner. The boys were biz-ay! So, pepper ate all the kiwi...

My husband learned just how long rocks can hold the attention of young boys, and that they didn't care if they caught anything or even got a bite. This was about quality time.

An outing together, a first together. Not a long trip, but just right for where our kids are right now.

Happy Easter, Christ is Risen!

Daddy Goggles

Yesterday my husband made a very big decision. He got rid of his PS3, his controllers, and ALL of his games! Let me tell you, game systems are very important to a lot of men. My husband used to be one of them.

When we were dating, I don't recall a night we talked that he wasn't playing a game. Once we got married he called it his best friend. We were going to have our first baby and he called it his "baby". See how much he valued it?

I told him yesterday, because he asked, that I was shocked and pleased that it is now gone. I was jealous of it sometimes. In some ways he treated it with more care and consideration than me or the children.

His reason for for such a change of heart, and the eviction of his former prized possession? He was seeing it through his daddy goggles. Yes, I was confused at first too.

He looked at how he felt about gaming in his younger days, and how it had affected his life. He looked at how it had affected his adult life. He looked at how it was affecting our family life, and his conclusion was that he didn't like what he saw.

No, he didn't spend all his time on it. But, we watched netflix on it, and there were shows that he had introduced our boys to that had become a problem.

He had noticed an attitude shift in our oldest that was alarmingly similar to the characters he was watching. We tried hiding the remotes and leaving it off...he found them. We tried watching something else and then he would throw very naughty fits.

Discipline him is what you are probably thinking...we did, and did, and did. Sometimes the best discipline is to take it away completely, even if it inconveniences you.

This part of our life is NOT all about us. We have to put on our goggles, like my husband, and see what the root of the problem is. Then, our job is to be parents and fix it if we can.

Our new family time will revolve around games and true togetherness instead of fighting over what to watch, or my husband playing games late because he is trying to do it while I'm asleep next to him on the couch so that it doesn't take his time from me....but it still did. He would wake up late, grumpy, and not get to spend the time he had with us before working that night.

Is there something in your life you need to put your goggles on and re-examine? Does it effect your children it your attitude? Does it steal your time? Does it cause you to argue with your spouse? If you can say yes to any of these questions, then I would encourage you to imagine a life if it weren't there. Maybe not forever...but for right now.

Taking it Back!

Our church has been talking about taking back what has been stolen from you by the devil. It could be a relationship, a vice, your faith, and maybe even your heart. Claiming the thing that was stolen in Jesus name and taking it back! So, today I declare that I am taking it back!

  I am taking back the scattered pieces of my heart. And, I give them back to my #1 and my #2 just as it was intended to be.

I am taking back my faith, I WILL have faith that God knew exactly what he was doing from the moment I was concieved. I believe that He is leading me even now to do the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life.

I am taking back my family. There are many things that have tried to work towards tearing us apart recently, and I refuse to let it go. It is mine!

I am taking back my love. I will not let my fears keep me from loving.

I am taking back my JOY. My mom told my twin sister once to "find her joy" when we were in high school, and she did just that...I think its time I do that myself.

There are seasons according to the bible. Sowing, and reaping. Right now I believe our family is in a sowing time. Planting the seeds of faith, trust, love, grace, peace, forgiveness, patience, long-suffering, and understanding. We are growing in some ways, but waiting in others. And, I know with a certainty that doesn't come from myself that when we reap this harvest it will surpass our wildest dreams.

Don't ever be afraid to take back what the devil has stolen....everything he has, he took from you!

Cherish the Moment

Yesterday my little firecracker was sick. Woke up bouncy and shortly came to me asking me to kiss his ear because it hurt. It was when he had done this repeatedly, and started crying that I knew it was an ear infection and it wasn't going to wait. We called the doctor and daddy.

Firecracker is my oldest, at 3, and he's big! He's in size 5/6 for the length, and yesterday was weighed at 47 pounds. And when he is exhausted or sick he's the one that needs to be rocked. And, I don't usually rock the babies to get them to sleep, unless they are sick. So, there I was in a chair at the doctor rocking my big boy.

It dawned on me while I was waiting that time is moving so fast. I won't be able to call these little people my babies much longer, and he's only going to get bigger. In that moment I resolved to cherish those little things that I won't get to do for much longer. Rocking them, kissing them...eew mom!, dancing in the livingroom to the power ranger theme song for the thousandth time.

Parenthood is such a busy time initially, and its not uncommon to feel it pass in a blur. But, we all need to let the dishes sit for a minute, let the little ones use the laundry as their own personal pile if leaves every once in a while. It isn't making a mess as my friend says, it's making memories!

Memories that will last, and encourage them well into their adult lives. And maybe someday when they have kids they will be able to pull out the memory and do the same things with their babies. Cherish your moments together! Have flour fights, jump in the mud, make piles out of laundry and jump in, and dance with your babies when they ask....you're making important memories.

 

 

 



Enemies or Friends?

The parts of married life that nobody cares to talk about. The really hard parts! Things that make you say and do things that you never dreamed you would. Some days you wonder if you have made your spouse your enemy or if you are even friends at this point.

Everything comes in seasons. Nothing stays the same, and you both will change and make mistakes along the way.

What worked for your friends won't necessarily work for you when you disagree, and the idea that you "never go to bed angry" is really a challenge from seasoned marriages, and not just cliche marital advice.

My husband and I had a wonderful day today! Probably the best in a while. No, we don't fight every day, but as I have admitted before I have mornings where I feel like he takes the things I do for granted.

Today at 3am, our oldest son decided he was ready to face the day. And anticipating the current routine, I went to get up feeling slightly miffed. My husband put his hand on my shoulder and told me to lay back down and go to sleep. He said that he would stay up with him and let me sleep until I was ready to get up and then take a nap before work....It's these things that make me love this man even more.

I actually got to sleep until 7. It was fabulous! And when I headed out to the livingroom my husand had breakfast started and a smile on his face. This is defiantly how I wish the mornings would go.

 No grumps or gripes, no hurt feelings, no animosity. He took his nap, and right before he was going to get ready for work he used one of his own parables to describe what his intentions for today were...He said that steel can withstand almost any force, but if you bend it enough it will crack. He said he didn't want to be so rigid anymore in the things that he wanted, that he ended up making me crack. HOW SWEET!

If you knew my husband you would think this was funny. He likes to use mechanical/industrial things for object lessons or compares them to thing so that you can get an idea of how they work or should work...He's goofy.

I am so glad that our prayers are being heard. We are trying to work as a team, and this is a step in a great direction! And as God would have it, the Facebook page of a book Called 'The Respect Dare' that I think I am being nudged to read, this was on my newsfeed shortly after the talk with my husband today...

Begin your repairs ladies and gentlemen! You can't build a house and expect it to stay together forever. Something always needs work, and if you own a home you know that some fixes are easy and some are hard, some increase the value and others are maintenance, but they are all needed...Hehe, my husband would be proud I used examples similar to what he would have.

When Real life meets the blog world

So, I have been inspired! Not by any person that I can see, or touch...today anyway...but by a blog that I ran across. The Ugly Homemaker is the name.

Many times blog posts can make everyone else seem like they live in Utopia, and because you have a hard time keeping up with everything that it appears they do while they brush their teeth, you must not be cut from the same cloth. Let me tell you, life happens at our house!

 I get upset with my children and my husband, regularly. I don't like dishes, though I love to cook, and I ask my husband very sweetly every chance I get to do a load for me....PRETTY PLEASE! My laundry is my my never ending story. My oldest is a firecracker who throws lovely tantrums and has started to bite when he gets angry. My middle son loves, "NO", and throws his food on the floor if he doesn't like it. Our daughter is a mommy's girl, and so far very quiet, but I am nursing her so there are moments where I just pray that my older two don't figure out that I left that pen on the counter until I can go get it. And our dog is a devout coward who hates to be outside for more than 1 minute if it is over 68 degrees....we live in OK, all summer it is far above that!

Real life happens! Messes, bumps, and burnt bread. It's never as calm and organized as we want. The garbage doesn't get taken out, you spill coffee on your white rug, and you are doing preschool with a little one who has a resistance to sitting still.

I prefer real life! I love my babies and my husband. We play, we eat, we fight, we get over it! I am blessed beyond all measure!

I actually ran across a little thinkg that I loved and printed off to put in my kitchen....

Could I?

One of the Facebook pages I am on has a weekly photo contest. This week is "most popular pregnant belly pic". So, I loved my belly pics and I am very happy to share!

I have to say, they are all wonderful! One woman bore a striking resemblance to Dora the Explorer, haircut an all so her husband had her dress up as a VERY pregnant "Dora" with "Backpack" and all. One woman never got to see her belly grow, but adopted her precious one, and took a picture with the ultrasound photo she got confirming her baby's gender held up next to her belly...it was a really touching picture. Then, there was a simple picture of a mother pregnant, holding her youngest and pregnant with another of her children next to her.

I met this woman when I first got to this base. She has 5 children, All had very exciting birth stories. And we had not seen much of eachother for a couple years.

In the time we have been apart, her oldest daughter was diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy that is slowly causing mental illness. And, just last week she posted that her baby had 17 seizures in one night...Lord, be with that precious child! And her husband is deployed again!

I see her posts daily...uplifting, kind, and full of hope. Hope for a cure for her daughter, and hope that God will bless her with strength for her other babies too while her husband is gone. I wonder, could I be like her if that were my situation?

Could I be full of faith, and not doubt? Happy and not sad? Accepting and not spiteful? I honestly don't know.

I know we adapt to our situations, and I know that I would find it in me. But, I hope that this woman knows what an inspriation she is to people...she is to me!

Seeing What You Have

Things are going well for our little family. My hubby has just found out that he's getting promoted...YEAH!...and our babies are growing like weeds. We have had our share of trials recently, but I see a light at the end of this current tunnel.

I follow several military wife facebook pages for our base. Some are for general info, some are for "feel good" comments, but one in particular seems to hold my interest. It's a little like the "real military wives of..." insert our current location. There are anonymous posts about who they know that's doing this or that...posts about how their marriages and family lives are going...and posts about general military questions.

I like being able to give advice. I like seeing that people can be honest and say that not everything is sunny in "paradise". But, then you see the posts about people who got fortunate enough to be stationed in the same city...state...tri-state area...as their family.

They complain about how their family member didn't watch their child so they could do this....or they wouldn't come to their child's important event....

Honestly, I don't feel bad! At no time since I have married my soldier have we been close enough to any of our family to invite them to a birthday party or just go on over to their house because we felt like not being alone that day. We had to tell my in-laws months in advance that we didn't have anybody who could watch our boys while I was in labor with their sister....MONTHS in advance, not weeks or days.

So, here's my comment....You don't know what we would give to be able to have family that was near us! I want our kids to know their family, but so far it's because we have made sure that they see both sides at least once a year...meaning we pack our car and our kids, stop our mail, my husband has to take leave for almost 3 weeks, and we drive! We drive for 36 hours and sometimes more depending on which family we are visiting. And then we drive some more because people have this annoying habit of not wanting to put forth any effort to meet you where it's convienient for you, even though you just made a HUGE trip just to be close enough to even see them before having to meet them at the inconvienient location they picked.

See what you have right next to you! If you get stationed even 8 hours from your family, count your blessings...you could have to drive 36 hours with three kids under 3 and dog! Just a little food for thought.

A love like...this

Sometimes in a moment of prophesy, or fate as some would think, someone realizes "THAT is my match!" Here is a story of a moment like that...

Gene saw her, across the yard getting on the school bus, and he said out loud, "that is the girl I'm gonna marry!". He had been graduated from the school for a year, but he had stopped by to visit some friends. A small town, where everyone knew eachother, and He didn't know her. Thankfully their friends found his infatuation with Pasty rather cute and helped him come up with a way to spend some time with her. The away game for the basketball team!

The scene was set...plans were put into motion...this poor girl didn't know that her future hinged on this one night! Patsy and her friend had gotten back on the bus after the game, and behold, all the seats except two were full, right next to Gene. Her friend said, "why don't you sit next to gene?", and after weeks of her friends and his trying to get them to go on a date she was NOT interested in sitting next to him. Someone who was 'in' on the plan suddenly found an extra seat for Patsy's friend, and now she was stuck next to HIM! Sleep was the only thing she could think of to escape having to play nice with this boy, so she tried to drift off. What? Why was a hand creeping behind her neck? Why was somone pulling her over to lean on a shoulder? She started and looked at him, "you're gonna get a crik in your neck if you sleep like that"....oh, he thought he was smooth and that made Patsy even more frustrated. Who did he think he was?

Person, by Person, the kids got off the bus. Patsy and the driver lived close, so he was going to drop her by her house and she was almost the last one on the bus. "Mwah!"....Oh my goodness, That Gene-boy just KISSED ME! He had stollen a quick kiss on his way off the bus, and then run like he was on fire, and she thought "he better run!" She was furious! This was 1954, fresh boys like that were not who she wanted to be around.

For a solid year she refused any attempt of their mutual friends to get her to date him. If he would kiss her like that without her permission when they weren't dating, what would he do when they were? Finally, she agreed to go only if her friend doubled with her. After several double dates, her friend told her she was on her own. And she continued to date Gene. Obviously things were going well because they got married July 21st, 1956.

Patsy had just graduated highschool and Gene had joined the Navy. Fastforeward 56 years.... Patsy is being handed a flag and a coin by her grandson-in-law, dressed in Air Force Blues. Gene had died of cancer on June 26th. 56 years, Three children, 5 grandchildren, and 4 (and one on the way) great-grandchildren. 23 years of service to the USA as a spouse and officer. What a LIFE!

I want a love story like this! One that proves that love is a gift, pre-ordained by God before time began. One that shows that it can LAST!

This Man and Woman are my grandparents. Papaw was the best man at my wedding, to my own soldier. Grandmaw taught me all her cooking tricks as a child, and it has served me very well in my own family. They were my "step" grandparents, but they were and are, very real to me! I hope to have such a story, and a legacy to share with my own grandchildren...can you imagine a love like...THIS!

And Baby makes 5!

In the time between my last post and now a little bundle wrapped in pink instead of blue, now rests in our home! Her name is Carita!

A precious little girl to add to our baby boys!

Her birth was the most eventful we have had, but I would do it all again to have her here and safe...

According to my midwives...I had a bit of a swimming pool in there. Meaning that they didn't realize I had SO MUCH amniotic fluid. This made my progress slower, and caused her to turn from straight to sideways when my water broke. They were worried that she might also compress her cord when my water broke, so they tried to slow the flow a little when it did break.

So, you have a baby head aimed at your hip instead of the exit...what do they do? Some would say automatic c-section, but I have some awesome women taking care of me, and we decided to try and turn her.

With the help of my midwife and an OB they coaxed our little one back to the right direction...and thankfully I had an epidural, because I was a little bruised after that. The OB made mention of how much room she had in there and then said something about a "corner" in my belly and I said, "well, according to both of you I have a playground in there!"...believe me, it was either a make light of it or lose it time for me. I was very scared, not because of myself, but turning our daughter came with the threat of her being in distress of some kind and them performing an emergency c-section. My only goal was a healthy baby...to heck with my body, she's my baby and they had permission to do whatever they needed to to me in order to keep her safe!

My husband has never looked so worried...but he held it together for me, and then hugged me and reassured me when it was all over.

But, our little adventure with our girl didn't end right there...

About an hour later her heart rate was very erratic, and the midwife came in and asked me if I could haul my half-paralyzed, from my epidural, self onto my hands and knees and lay over the back of my raised bed so that they could see if it would stabalize her heart rate....yeah, it worked! But, I got to wear an oxygen mask, and hold myself up for another hour.

My midwife came in again, and ta-da, I'm ready to push! In less than 30 minutes my husband got to bring the third of our children into the world!

I am so proud of him for wanting to be so involved in the births of our children! It's his biggest accomplishement according to him, and I think that they will come to appreciate his involvement in their first moments when they are parents one day.

And here is our precious Carita being held by her Great-Grandma Carita! Great-Grandma stayed with me and my husband at the hospital all day and got to see her little namesake come into the world...full of stubborness and spirit just like her!