Thursday, October 27, 2011

Thoroughly Clean: More progress!

Well, October is almost over and it seems like I'm finally figuring things out!  Remember my goals from January?  One of them was to do a better job at keeping my house fairly clean.  With two young sons, it's pretty much impossible to keep the house perfect.  I realize that and I'd like to think I'm a pretty realistic person.  So instead of perfection, my goal has been to keep it in a way where I wouldn't be embarrassed if someone stopped by unannounced.  This week, that happened :)  Someone called and said, "Hey, I'm driving by your house.  Do you mind if I stop by?"  I cheerfully said, "Nope!  Come on over!" and was happy to know that my house looked decent.  Were there dishes in the sink?  A few.  Were there toys on the floor?  Yeah.  But it was minimal.  Overall the place looked good.  I was so excited :)  It's kind of a mess again, but that's ok.  It's nothing like it used to be on a bad day.  I can get this straightened up before J gets home :)  Yay progress!!!  Thanks, Lord, for helping me do this :)

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Thanks, Lord, for working on me :)

As I said in the very beginning of my blog, waaaay back in January, one of my goals is to become a more loving and wise mother.  For whatever reason, that has been a very hard thing for me.  I love my kids, I really, really do.  But my goodness they can dance on my last nerve!  Disciplining in a loving and controlled way used to be a strength of mine, but once L joined our family, something in me changed.  I still desire to discipline my children that way, and I certainly believe that's the best thing for them, but it's just seemed impossible.  For a while, I tried to fix my attitude on my own.  I'd wake up and say to myself, "Today is going to be a great day!  I will not yell, I will remain calm even when the boys are out of control, and everything I do will be in love."  Those very same days, the boys would wake up and seemed to say to themselves, "Today is going to be a great day!  I'm going to scream, hit, bite, and throw the biggest tantrums the world has ever seen!"  It was two against one.  They won those battles.  That's when I started praying about it.  Yes, I prayed for my boys attitudes, but I mainly prayed for mine.  I needed to learn how to respond in a calm manner, to think before speaking (yelling?), to show them the grace my Savior showed me.  I prayed more out of desperation than anything.  Why do we wait so long before handing things over to God?  We think we can handle things on our own, but we can't.  I should have placed this in His hands months earlier.  It would have saved us all from unnecessary frustration and anger!  But anyway, back to the point... finally, FINALLY this week, I feel like I'm starting to get it back.  My old, calm parenting style, that is.  I have been able to handle situations with love instead of anger.  I was able to discipline while using self control instead of lashing out.  I know what the difference is...it's the fact that God is answering my prayer.  He's helping me learn how to be a better mother, a godly example of how a Christian should respond in hard times, how a child (I am God's child, after all) learns by following the Father's advice (the Bible).  I'll keep praying because I have a looooong way to go, but it's encouraging to see God's work in me :)

Friday, October 21, 2011

Tons of pics from T's Party!


                                    












Wednesday, October 19, 2011

This is my ministry

We started a new Bible study at church last week.  It's something that's been missing for a while and it's nice to have a woman's Bible study during the week again.  The book we're studying is called You Matter More That You Think, by Leslie Parrott and it's all about how you are able to make a big difference in other people's lives.  It's nice to hear that sometimes, but it also got me thinking about where I am in my life.  Sometimes I think I need to be serving more.  Maybe I'm not doing enough for God.  That's how I felt after our first meeting.  They encouraged us to mentor those who are younger than we are, which I agree is extremely important, and Biblical.  So it was on my mind for a while.  Am I truly serving God the way He has commanded?  Do I need to start teaching Sunday School again?  Or do some other type of ministry?  I've actually stopped going to another study recently because I felt like it was more important to have that time with my family.  Maybe that was the wrong decision?  Those women are all at a stage of life I've been through (dating, engaged, or newly married) and I could definitely offer some of the things I learned by going through those stages.  I questioned my decisions and my ministries for a few days until Sunday during Church.  We had a guest singer and I completely forget what she was singing (it wasn't a song I had heard).  Whatever it was, it had me feeling even more like a spiritual slacker.  Then it hit me.  Right now, at this point in my life, my primary ministry is to my family.  I don't need my focus and my energy spread out thin in a thousand different ministries.  My children and my husband deserve more than that.  The difference I'm making is in their lives.  I'm teaching them through our daily routines and interactions.  Hopefully they see my desire to serve God and others.  I am exactly where God wants me to be.  Sure, some day He might want my back in a Sunday School classroom or encouraging younger women (well, these women aren't that much younger...just in a different stage I guess), but for now, my place is here with my boys :)

Monday, October 17, 2011

Monday Madness! Birthday party weekend

T's birthday is on the 20th.  As I shared yesterday, we had his party this past weekend.  It was a blast!  I  really can't believe my first born, my sweet T, is 3 years old!  How did this happen???  He's becoming such a kind hearted little man and I love him to pieces!  In honor of his birthday, today's madness will be focused on T and all the things he loves:

Favorite foods: string cheese, tacos, chicken nuggets (!!!), fruit, fruit snacks, and chocolate milk.
Least favorite foods: still pasta, pretty much all veggies, peanut butter, and meat loaf
Favorite toys: cars, trains, firetrucks, he's all boy.  He loves to line them all up.  He also loves anything that involves climbing.
Favorite games: he loves to pretend his brother is a monster and run away (surprisingly, L loves this game too), he loves Hide and Seek, and races.
Favorite TV shows: Backyardagains, Fireman Sam, and Veggie Tales
Best friends: the little boy my sister nanny's for and two of the neighbor girls.  We see all three of those kids often!!!
Favorite places to go: Ikea, Chuck E Cheese, and Target (hahaha!  He seriously loves Ikea and Target!)
Favorite color: Blue
Favorite songs: Oh No, You Never Let Go is probably his #1 favorite.  He also loves the Veggie Tales worship cd in our car.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Weekend fun!

We celebrated Sweet T's birthday this weekend.  I'll save most of the pictures for his actual birthday, but thought I'd give a sneak peak (but I think most of my readers are FB friends and have already seen our pics, lol).  Here is my favorite...or at least one of my favorites. 
And a verse, because I like to type out a verse on the weekend :)  I'll write T's favorite, the first one he learned and one we've probably all memorized:

John 16 (T's way of saying John 3:16)

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son so that who so ever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Just Shut UP!

Today is Wednesday and this is what God is teaching me this week.  I fail miserably at it!  Sometimes, I just need to stop talking and let God do His thing.  But I'm too much of a control freak to do that.  I also need to stop talking and be obedient to Him.  I don't know why I feel like I need to say everything that I'm saying, whether it is loving and kind or not. 

Another thing that I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I might have blogged about it, but I can't remember, is that the only things in this life that truly matter are the things that make an eternal difference.  I drove past a grave yard once and thought about all of the lives of the people in there.  Who were they?  What did they do for a living?  What kind of difference did they make in their lives?  I'll never know.  The people they left behind know the difference they made, but then those people die too and the memories and the difference made no longer matter.  My great grandma made a difference in my grandma's life, and in my mom's life, but I never knew her.  What she did has little impact on me.  And she will likely have no impact on my children, who will probably not remember the stories my mom tells of her.  Her legacy ends there.  BUT, she was a Christian and the lives she touched for Christ, now THAT makes a difference!  People will spend eternity with Christ because of what she did on earth.  No one cares now what she did for a living, but there are certainly people who care that she loved them with God's love.  I guess I don't really know how to express what I've been thinking, but it all makes sense in my crazy mind.  We need to stop focusing on stupid stuff, selfish stuff, stuff that seems so, so important but won't really matter in 100 years, and focus on making an eternal difference.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Visiting B!

I went to visit one of my best friends this past weekend.  There are two girls who will be my BFF no matter what.  They have been there with me through the thick and thin, years and years, which is rare for a military brat.  One is D, she lives on the other side of the country and is the complete opposite of me.  I love her to DEATH though.  We've been best friends since we were 4.  Yep, this military brat has had a friend for all her life.  I only see her once every couple of years and we only talk a couple times a year.  It's sad, but I know that she is there for me in a heart beat.  The other friend is so much like me.  We met in high school when our dads were stationed here around the same time.  She came from the far FL and I came from CA, both warm climates.  We experienced our first winter together (I've lived in CO too, but I was little...cold weather was still "new" to me).  We were both extremely shy, silly, boy crazy, have ADD, the same goals in life, and we were a little ditzy.  We were instantly best friends.  Her dad stayed in the military and moved again while my dad retired here.  She married military, I married civi.  While we are still so, so similar, our lives have taken different paths.  Her parents are currently stationed about 2-3 hours from here and plan to retire there.  Her husband... IS STATIONED THERE TOO!!!!  YAY!!!!!  I get to visit B now :)  She's been there for about a year, and has about a year left, but I am still so excited to have this time with her.  She was pregnant with me.  She was due more than a month before me, but her little guy was born late while mine came a month early, so L is actually a week older than G.  My sweet friend is pregnant again.  With another boy!!!  We will both have two boys close in age :)  I love it!  I love that we can have such different lives, but still be so similar.  This past weekend, I took my boys down there (my momma came too, she visited B's momma) and it was just so wonderful to talk and spend time together.  I feel so blessed to have wonderful, life-long friends like her and D.  I think a friend like that is rare.  I guess there really isn't a point to this post other than to brag about my friends :)