Monday, February 28, 2011

Hugs & Kisses - The Essential Part of our Discipline

The beginning of this pregnancy was no cake walk.  I was more exhausted this time around and that made my morning sickness much harder to deal with.  Then I had a few weeks on bed rest during that time.  Through all of this, Carson didn't get much mommy time.  I was too tired and had absolutely no motivation to do anything.  Plus the smell of another person, including my precious son, set my morning (all day) sickness off.  Carson didn't get a lot of love and attention from me for a period of about three months.  Do you think it's a coincidence then that he became out of control during this time?  My poor hubby's head was spinning trying to figure out what happened to our once happy and obedient toddler (well, at least most of the time :).  Finally, when some of my energy started returning and my morning sickness was fading a little I realized how little I had been hugging and kissing my little guy, which is something I did a lot (I can't help it, he's just too cute!).  I immediately started planting kisses on his cheek while he was playing or hug him randomly.  With just this little change his devil horns were starting to disappear.  As more of my energy returned, I added in play time and one-on-one attention and what do you know!?  Our little guy was back.  We could once again go out in public. Our house became much more peaceful.  Now, time, love, and attention are my #1 priorities in order to keep his good behavior up and his bad behavior at bay.  It takes time and energy but for us, it is well worth the effort.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Eternal Encouragements Magazine Newsletter Review

When I found out that this months mission as a Gabby Mom was to review a newsletter, I have to admit I was a tad disapointed.   I already receive a ton of newsletters and adding another one on the list during such a busy month didn't get me on the edge of my seat in excitement.  What happened though surprised me.  I received two newsletters to review and as I started reading the first newsletter instead of it just being something on my to do list, I really enjoyed it.  I receive no other newsletters like this one.  I receive health newsletters and toddler/baby newsletters and a slew of others that have just randomly showed up in my inbox, but I do not have a single one that is spiritually encouraging to me.  It really dawned on me through this process how important that spiritual encouragement is. 


What did I love so much about this newsletter?  It was laid out very well.  Starting with a letter from Lorrie with spiritual encouragement, then onto some discounts (woohoo!), and more encouraging content.  Another love was the Chick Flicks for Moms.  I was surprised by how great these little tid bits were.  It was also great seeing Lorrie herself speaking encouragement to us moms.  It put a face and voice to all the wonderful things I have been reading.  I ended up watching the majority of the videos on her Chick Flicks site www.chickflicksformom.com. I'm now officially hooked.

 (Click on the picture above to sign up for the Encouraging Moments Newsletter)

"While talking to women, one thing I hear often is, "I'm not happy." I cannot count the number of times I have had to gently say that happiness is not a right. Marriage isn't supposed to make you happy. It's supposed to make you married. It's your job to make your marriage happy and satisfying."  

This mindset is what literally saved my marriage back in our younger years.  We were sorely mistaken by the amount of work a marriage takes.  Finally, when we stopped trying to fix each other and started fixing ourselves did our marriage turn around and with this kind of mindset it has continued to get better and better.

"Secondly, you have to put the Bible where the dirt has been. Take a Bible bath daily."   

Take a Bible bath daily.  Maybe I shouldn't be focusing so much on the relaxing shower I wanted to take or think of other things besides my hubby remodeling our bathroom so I can take a bubble bath!  It's been awhile since I've taken a Bible bath, since I've really dug deep into what the scripture is saying instead of getting some verses read because that's what I am supposed to do.  

I'm looking forward to the regular encouragement, like what is mentioned above, that I am going to receive by having subscribed to this newsletter.    

You can find other encouraging resources and products at www.HomeMakingwithTeach.com

*Disclaimer: I am reviewing Encouraging Moments as an official member of The Gabby Moms blogging program for Eternal Encouragement magazine.  I did not receive compensation for this post and all opinions are solely my own.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

August Baby!

So I am finally "announcing" the good news that I'm pregnant!  I am now 15 weeks along and because I'm not showing yet, I guess I haven't felt as much pressure to actually tell others.  Our family knows and some close friends, but that has been pretty much it.  After the last miscarriage, I sort of felt that if I shared the news, I would jinx the pregnancy.  It's taken me awhile to get up the courage to talk about this pregnancy.

I have no idea why I would have any fear.  Not only do I have the Lord on my side, but my first trimester was worse than with Carson.  I missed three months of life.  I spent most of my time hugging the toilet or sleeping.  Obviously baby was doing okay.  My hunch is that the hubby was secretly happy about my morning sickness.  Each time as I was hunched over in pain trying to hold onto what little I ate, I would hear "at least we know the baby's okay."  I really got tired of hearing that.  Yet I panicked when I hit 14 weeks and my nausea was gone.  I guess it became my comfort zone.

I have been really trying to get into this pregnancy and it has been somewhat of a challenge.  Now that I'm feeling better I even forget I'm pregnant sometimes.  Maybe because it's not my first pregnancy.  Or because I'm not showing.  I have also had nothing to do this pregnancy.  As soon as I became pregnant with Carson, I launched myself into a ton of research regarding the kind of birth I wanted.  It was probably above and beyond what is considered normal and I spent the entire pregnancy doing so. I have nothing left to really look into this time.  I may read a few books but I already have the birth planned out so I'm not in a huge hurry to get started.  

We get to find out gender in a few weeks and even though I was playing with the idea of a surprise, finding out and being able to plan will give me something to do for this baby and I'm looking forward to that.  Crossing my fingers for a girl, but will be very happy either way. 

Thursday, February 17, 2011

My Little Hunter

Josh and I were watching the most terrible documentary last night.  By terrible I mean rather unbelievable.  It was about Stone Henge and maybe there was some truth to it but the majority of the documentary seemed to be taken up by snippets of what life was like in 4000 b.c. by portraying out there stories.  So the whole time Josh and I were saying how ridiculous this was, how do they know if two brothers went hunting on sacred ground and were frightened by spirits?  Anyway during this time of bashing the film, Carson was apparently watching the two brothers hunt with fascination.  These two hunters took down a pig with bows and arrows and that was the end of the story.  Carson wanted to know what happened to the pig after that. While I was thoughtfully trying to think of what to say to a two year old on this subject, Josh blurts out that they took it home and cooked it.  My jaw dropped!  In my mind I'm thinking that Carson is picturing fuzzy animals being cooked.  Yet to my surprise Carson had the opposite reaction I thought he would.  He thought it was cool and talked incessantly for the next 20 minutes about how they took the pig home and cooked it and ate it, all the while showing us how they hunted him.   Then he stops and demanded his hat, coat and boots so he could go hunt a pig too.  Finally, we were able to convince him that there were no wild pigs in our neighborhood. Sometimes it shocks me how fast little boys become boys. 

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Puke

This is a subject that would have had me running...that is before having a child.  I always thought my mom was a saint for taking care of me when I was sick and cleaning up after me when I couldn't make it to the bathroom.  Then I got married and my hubby took over the role my mother previously had, elevating his level to sainthood. 


Throw up is actually something I feared dealing with as a parent (how silly is that!?). I have a strong stomach for other things, I'm a caregiver for goodness sake, yet seeing vomit, makes me...vomit. 
I was very pleased when Carson was a little over a year and I met my first challenge head on.  I didn't even gag as he threw up every 20 mins all over me, the couch, and the floor then smearing it everywhere the entire night.  With calm reserve I quickly wiped away the messes.  My husband looked at me like an amazing warrior...he was proud of me as he quickly went to hide away from the nastiness. 

Having a toddler means that my strength is tested often.  He picks up every little virus he comes into contact with.  It dawned on me this last time, just a few days ago, how awesome it feels to be a mom.  As I held his little bucket and helped him sit up from sleep to take care of business, it amazed me at the strength you get just from becoming a mom.  It just happens.  You don't even realize it or see it happening but before you know it you're stronger than you ever thought you'd be.  It took me awhile to become a true mama bear but oh boy I now have no problem letting out a nice growl (or roar as necessary).   

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Moving Forward

So Josh and I are still trying to make our new "home" a home.  Our partially finished/unfinished basement is already getting old.  It might also be that I'm tired of winter!  We have been feeling a little down because of that and the fact that our Adult Family Home License is taking FOREVER.  The State has had our application for 5 months.  Seriously, how much longer people.  This morning we woke up and decided that we should start working on our space by organizing and get everything ready to finish down here.  We dug right in and started going through our back storage room (soon to hopefully be Carson's room) and we got a page from our employee upstairs that the State Licensor is here.

Our employee was excited and we came bounding up the steps excited because we thought it was for our change of ownership process and we were finally getting licensed.  Nope, just the annual inspection.  BIG let down.  Although it was rather funny because the inspector had never seen that happy of a reaction before!  Thankfully she was very nice and it did give us practice for our big inspection.  But we were bummed and it reminded us, once again, that we are still in limbo waiting for our license.

Then I get a voice mail on my phone from the woman in government that had been working on our license and guess what!?  Things are finally moving forward.  We should hear from our state inspector in a week.  Lol.  Not sure why they couldn't have timed that out better.  We'll now be having two inspections in just a couple of weeks.  However, we are thrilled!  So excited to move forward and have all of our life changes pay off and also return to a more normal way of life...i.e...me being the stay-at-home mom (which we have all missed, including the hubbs).

This is all in perfect timing because I made an executive decision to change our schedule recently.  The new schedule is reducing our hours by quite a bit but we need to provide a life for our little guy, and I decided that burning ourselves out before becoming the official owners was a bad idea.  We're good at budgeting so I convinced Josh we could take it in the shorts until the license goes through.  Thankfully, or hopefully rather, that won't be very long!!!!  I'm so very thankful for a God that provides!  Looking forward to the future.