Change

For as long as I can remember, I have hated change. I have gotten better, because, let's face it, if you have kids, things change.  A few things that I've seen change in my almost 4 years of motherhood (FOUR?!  How in the world can my baby girl be almost FOUR?!?! ):

1.  Coffee tastes a whole lot sweeter.  Which is weird since I've pretty much stopped putting creamer in and just drink it with half and half, so it actually tastes like (GASP!) coffee!

2. My body.  'Nuff said ;)

3.  Schedule.  Neither of my kids has been what you call a "good sleeper."  Shoot, sometimes they haven't even been called a "sleeper!" Last night, for example, we woke up 4 times: 3 times for The Boy and 1 time for The Girl.  And the kicker is....we felt like that was a pretty good night!! :)  I guess it's a total case of God's grace, because we are running on approximately 4 years of not sleeping great, but we know how bad it could be (because we've been there!) and God just somehow helps us to keep on going!

4. Priorities.  Even though it has taken practice, we've had to say no to many things for the good of our family.  We are still working on it and trying not to over-commit (let's be honest, as a pastor/pastor's wife, it DOES feel like you need to say yes to as many things as possible), but it's been a sweet time to just focus on our family and put it first. 

5.  Priorities.  AGAIN?!  Yes, but a different part of priorities!  We have decided to start homeschooling our kids (never thought I'd be HSing!) and with that we've been really examining our family and trying to figure out what we really want them to KNOW.  The ABCs?  Numbers? The order of the Presidents?  All 50 states and their capitals? Yes, yes and yes...at some point.  But the thing that we've really decided that we want them to really know is who God is.  We are currently trying to figure out how best to teach that to them.  It's kind of a big job!  But also an incredible one!

And those are just a few things that have changed!  You know what, though?  I wouldn't change it.  Not a thing.  Not even the sleep!  Yes, it would be nice to get a bit more.  But I also get to snuggle my babies a lot more because of it.  It has helped me to lean into God, to say "Lord, I can't do it today, I need your help...and coffee..." ;)  It has brought The Hubs and I closer together.  Why would I want to change any of those things?! 

Bottom line: I love my babies.  I love that I get to be their mommy.  Even with all the change that comes with it, I wouldn't change it for the world! (Note: this does NOT mean that we don't have hard days.  For a while there it seemed like it was ONLY hard days!)

Life as I know it...

Once again I have earned a big fat "F" for doing such a terrible job of updating my blog.  We have been busy with, well, life.  Life for now includes being a mommy to my wonderful (and busy!) kidlets; a wife to a total hottie who happens to be a pastor; being involved in church (in charge of our nursery, home group once a week, youth group with the hubs every once in a while, VBS, other special events); trying to not totally hate summer (it's by far my least favorite season, but I'll show you soon what I have made to try to like it and hey, it actually worked!) by doing summer-y things; homeschooling my oldest; trying to get my youngest to learn to sleep; working 2-3 days a week, taking care of a little girl (who is going to have a little brother soon!  going to be a full house!); visiting my parents and my in-laws; and the list goes on!

I tell ya what, I know that there are people who are even busier than I am, and I have no idea how they are able to blog!  I guess they probably prioritize better than I do and make better choices about how to spend free time than I do!

That all being said, I'm going to *try* to give this another try! Stay tuned... :)

Simplification

I have been have mini little anxiety attacks for the last few months. Nothing that I need to go to the doctor for, but there was just something that was not quite right in my soul. God has been stirring up some things in my heart recently (which I will share at a later time...can't really put it into words yet!) and everything is starting to tie together. The anxiety has been mostly due to the order of my home; I attribute it to a lack of organization, too much dang stuff, being too lazy to put things away right away, and two (sometimes 3) beautiful kids that love to get stuff out and keep me on my toes!

So I am dedicating my summer to simplification! I am going to try to do a new thing each week to simplify, then continue it for the rest of the summer. I am hoping to really make these things a habit so that the anxiety that I have been feeling will subside even more and we can make our home a place of peace. 

This week in order to simplify, I am going to try to only go to a store for fresh produce. I buy meat when it is on sale...and then never use it! So whether it was cheap to begin with, it ends up being expensive if I don't use it! I also really want to try to be a bit more creative with cooking and using what we have is just the ticket! I am also staying away from Walmart so I don't buy any craft materials that I don't necessarily need! I'm hoping that our spending (besides normal bills) will be less than $10 for the week! In an attempt to declutter, I am going to go through my magazines, pull out pages that I want to keep and put the rest of the mag in a yard sale "free" pile or to toss them. I kept them for too long, "just in case" and I am beginning to think that if I haven't used them for 5 years, it probably isn't going to happen!

Now for the big question:
Who's with me?!?! ;)

(actually both {that's right, I've got TWO!! ;)} of my readers are people who have inspired me to do this, without even knowing! So thank you Chelsea  and Becky)

Taking a breather!

What a week!  I am well aware that I said that I was going to try to post 2x a week, but this week was absolutely nuts!  We had the usual stuff (work, Little Missy's homeschool co-op, dinner with the in-laws and the, um, out-laws?!, trying to keep Little Sonny from eating EVERYTHING on the floor, etc), plus 2 photo "jobs," birthday parties, getting our yard in order, Mother's Day dinner with our fabulous mothers, doctor appointment, teething baby, sleep training baby, and I can't even remember what else we had going.  All I know is that yesterday morning it suddenly dawned on me that Little Missy hadn't brushed her teeth all week, so we MUST have been busy! (We did give them a good brush yesterday though, no worries ;))  The only reason I'm able to write now is because both kids are in bed (not asleep, but in bed ;)) and the hubs is at a softball game so I have free time.

Which brings me to a random question: When you have free time, do you do like I do and come up with about a million things to do since you actually have some time, and think that there's a possibility that you can get them all done?  Or stress out because you can't choose which activity you will do and by the time you decide you're so tired that you're ready for bed?  Or the baby wakes up?  Or is that just me?!  The house is reasonably clean (trying to keep on top of that!) so I immediately thought of other things I could do with my free time, including:

1. read (currently reading this book, this book, the Bible, and wanting to start this book and this book)
2. wash my feet (been walking outside with no shoes or socks on...you'd think this would be a priority, but oddly, it is not)
3. scrapbook
4. watch a chick flick
5. go to bed
6. write a blog post (yay for me!)
7. check Pinterest
8. ok, there definitely could be a bit of improvement on the cleaning, now that I look at it
9. bubble bath WHILE reading (can clean my feet and read, 2 birds, 1 tiny little stone!)
10. get a cleaning system started
11. write a menu
12. edit photos from baby photo shoot
13. put photos onto CD for other photo shoot
14. put photos onto CD for something we did in NOVEMBER!!
....... and that is just the list of things I thought of the 5 minutes.
There was a big part of my brain that said "Hey, I can do all of that, with all this free time!" But really, it's only about an hour til the baby wakes up and/or daddy comes home and/or Little Missy needs something and/or I tire myself out from all of the thinking about what to do nonsense!

 As you can see, I obviously chose to blog AND hopefully I can either get the pics onto CD for the 2 people I need to get them to, or edit the baby pics.  Or just go to bed ;) Whatever I end up doing, I am going to be grateful for a.) the fact that I have free time and b.) the three people in my life that keep me so busy that free time is truly a blessed time!  I wouldn't have it any other way!

Hope you all had a lovely Mother's Day!

Bueller? Bueller?

Oy vey, life has been busy!    Hence the lack of posting!  BUT I had a thought as I was just trying for the 6th time today to get my sweet little mister to go to sleep (incoming teeth are not being kind to the poor dude) that I am going to try to post on here 2 times a week for the month of May.  Not for any reason in particular, mostly to show myself that I can do it.

So here we go!

Living Intentionally

Ok, this post could go about a thousand different ways, so I'll just write and see what comes out!

A little bit of background: I went to a Bible college in 2006 when The Hubs and I were newly married.  We were only there for one year, and it was a 3 year program.  We thought it was going to be a totally wonderful, uplifting experience that would help us to grow in the Lord together in our first year of marriage.  We did grow and were able to spend all kinds of quality time together (we lived 1 km away from the beach and didn't work because once taxes were taken out in this particular country, it wasn't really worth it).  Beach, newly married, no work....SIGN ME UP!!!  We had an amazing first year of marriage...except for the fact that Bible college was not what we expected it to be.  I came away feeling torn down, exhausted, and not really knowing what I believed.  I knew that I still believed in God, but that was about it.  I had a hard time reading my Bible without it feeling like homework, and over the next few years I read less and less and felt further away from God than I ever had.

The only thing that really stuck with me from Bible college was what one professor told me: "There was a yes in me that just could not say no."  In those years, I kept thinking to myself that I should just stop pretending, just keep living a "good" life but that I didn't really need to acknowledge God.  But there was that little bit of me that couldn't just let go fully.

Fast forward to about a year and a half ago.  I started reading my Bible a bit more as part of my 101 things to do in 1001 days because I really wanted to be able to say that I had read through the whole thing.  I still had not given up on God (and luckily He never gave up on me) and started doing what I felt like I could do to grow closer to Him.  I never really felt like I got closer to Him, but I kept feeling like I was getting closer to what I was "supposed to become."  I had a bit of anticipation, and was getting excited to see what I affectionately called my "thing" was going to be.  I started doing a bit with photography, realized that I really loved to cook/bake (when I actually took the time to do it), I'm obsessed with crafty-type things (though I don't do any of it very well, I like to take shortcuts and it shows!) and I wondered if any of this was related to my "thing."

A few months ago I realized that I really needed to get on with my Bible reading if I was going to finish the whole thing in the allotted time, and along with that I had been praying that I would actually WANT to read it, to figure out who God is, to read it like it was something that I actually enjoy like any other book, instead of feeling like I HAVE to read it because that's what Christians do.

I realized just about a month and a half ago that that is exactly what happened.  I was getting lost less and less, disinterested less and less (let's be honest, some of those books are hard to follow and can leave us wondering why we should read it!  Leviticus anyone?! ;)), and hardly ever falling asleep (yes, I confess I did that many times!)  I now find myself carving time out of my day to go finish where I left off the previous day!  I'm starting to remember things that I've read, just as I would any other book.  What?!  God answering SPECIFIC, seemingly RIDICULOUS, prayers?!  You betcha!

Now, at the end of December, instead of making New Year's resolutions, The Hubs and I resolved to live by these two words: Living Intentionally.  We want everything we do this year to be with intention.  We've found ourselves wasting a lot of time being on Facebook/Twitter/blogs/Pinterest, etc instead of spending time doing what we actually WANT to spend time on.  I won't go into detail in this entry about things we are doing to live this out, but let me tell you, it's been AMAZING!!!  Our relationship with each other changed, our relationships with our kids have changed, and our relationships with the Lord have changed, and all in a fantastic way!

Okay, I promise this is going to end soon! :)  With Living Intentionally, my new love for reading the Bible, and actually praying, I have come to a place in my relationship with the Lord that I honestly never thought I would be.  I just finished reading Jeremiah and I was shocked at all the times that God would get angry with the Israelites and then say (totally paraphrasing!) "But come back to me!  I want you!  I want you to choose the right thing!  Choose me!  I love you!"  It goes on and on.

We had a prayer night at church a few weeks ago for healing, and we went (though I normally don't like to go to those kinds of things...especially with 2 kids and no child care!). We got some awesome prayer for healing (our family has been sick a LOT this winter!), but I also had 2 different women come up to me saying (again, paraphrased) "God is well-pleased with you.  You are right where you need to be.  YOU are enough.  You don't have to be seeking what you 'should' be doing, you're already there."  All very encouraging things, and God speaking straight to my heart.

As I thought about it more, I realized that this "thing" I had been trying to figure out, what I was supposed to become, was just being a lover of God.  Yes, it can turn into more.  Yes, it might later become something to do with photography, hobbies, food, etc.  But Jeremiah 9:23-24 says,

"This is what the Lord says:
'Don't let the wise boast in their wisdom, or the powerful boast in their riches.  But those who wish to boast should boast in this alone: that they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord, who demonstrates unfailing love and who brings justice and righteousness to the Earth, and that I delight in these things.  I, the Lord, have spoken!"

As my little girl says "Wowsers!" Here I have been trying to be something, find what I'm good at and created for, and while that is GOOD, I feel like the Lord is saying that if I just go ahead and make my focus getting to know Him and understand that He is Lord, and make that my "thing," I will be doing all that I am supposed to be doing right now.

Okay, so that was a REALLLLLLLLY LOOOOOOOOOONG way of saying that God is good and He answers prayers :)  Congrats if you made it through!  I feel like it was just a really long run-on sentence, but it was something that I needed to do for myself, because too many times I forget the good things that He has done.  This is one I NEED to remember.

A picture is worth a thousand words...and sometimes more!

This picture sums up our Christmas beautifully: a little bit of crazy and a whole lotta love!

I'm linking this to other "Silly Holiday Photos" at I Heart Faces