Things I would have missed

Here are just a few of the things I would have missed today if I wasn’t home with my kids. I’m thankful for the opportunity to see and be a part of even the littlest things happening in their live every day.

• Troy doing a great (left-handed!) job using a spoon with his yogurt.
• Ella marrying two of her sock monkeys.
• Troy climbing on a stack of boxes (to turn on a light), smiling, and saying “I’m up high!”
• Ella singing to the UmiZoomi theme song and doing the “crazy shake” at the end of the show.
• The kids excitement to spend just a few minutes learning memory verses.
• The kids fighting over the opportunity to do a “special” task (letting Reeses in and out of the house).

When I Disappear Off the Blog . . .

. . .I just might be pregnant!

 

I’m not going into hiding because I’m pregnant (although it might seem that way). Rather, it is simply a result of not feeling well at all. I’m not here to complain; in fact, I’m thrilled to be expecting again. Life has just been particularly hard these past few weeks as I’ve been dealing with hyperemesis gravidarum (a severe form of morning sickness). It isn’t anything new to me: I had this condition with both Ella and Troy, but it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with nonetheless. Hyperemesis can make it difficult to get even the simplest things done around the house, and it can be extremely disheartening to not be able to keep up with life passing all around me. Hopefully, though, the worst will be behind me soon and I’ll be back to being able to doing all the things I want and need to do.

Parenting from Proverbs: Seeking Counsel and Wisdom

I started a new personal Bible study today – studying through Proverbs. One type of application I’m specifically looking for is how the wisdom from this book pertains to parenting, and how I can apply it in my life to be a better Christian parent.

There are many ideas that could be considered from Proverbs 1, but I specifically considered Proverbs 1:5.

A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel.

Proverbs 1 is filled with information about wisdom, and how to gain wisdom in one’s life. Proverbs 1:5 states that a wise man will not only hear, but also increase learning as well as that a wise man will seek wise counsel. Parenting is a difficult task, and I know I can gain much by seeking wise counsel about parenting. Where can I go for wise counsel on parenting?

First, I need to look to God’s Holy Word and His example as our Father. Only a couple of verses down, Solomon writes in Proverbs 1:7: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” I must have the proper view and reverence for God. God is the perfect example of a Father for us, and through His Word He has given us “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). This includes parenting.

Secondly, I can look to the instruction and counsel given to me by my parents. I am blessed with Christian parents, and I’m thankful to be raised in a Christian home and to be taught the wonderful gospel of Jesus Christ. Solomon writes in Proverbs 1:8-9: “My son, hear the instruction of your father, And do not forsake the law of your mother; For they will be a graceful ornament on your head, and chains about your neck.”

Additionally, I can look to other Christians for guidance in parenting. I think about Titus 2, and the instructions given to Titus by Paul to “speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1). Titus was to instruct the older women to teach the younger women: “the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things— that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children,  to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed” (Titus 2:3-5). On the surface, it might appear that only one of the items in the list – to love their children – would involve instruction about parenting; however, instruction in all the areas mentioned would encourage better parenting. For example, I think part of my duty as a Christian mother is to exhibit how to love and be obedient to my husband, and without doing such things I would certainly be lacking as a parent.

The last section of Proverbs 1 warns about the danger in not heeding instruction and wisdom, and concludes with the blessing that can come if one does seek wisdom: “But whoever listens to me [wisdom]  will dwell safely, And will be secure without fear of evil” (Proverbs 1:33). As a Christian, I need to be seeking Godly wisdom in all my endeavors, including parenting.

A Busy Life

Up until September of last year, I was a full time work-at-home mom. I was thankful for the opportunity to be able to work at home rather than having to work outside the home, but it definitely wasn’t an ideal situation. I was neglecting my family as well as myself during that time. Thankfully, I was able to transition from that full time position to a contract position (where I can work only as much as I want and only when I want). When I transitioned out of my full time work, I really thought that I would have so much more time to do everything I wanted to do.

I was reflecting on how many blog posts I’ve averaged over the past few years, and I noticed that, overall, I’ve blogged a lot less this past year. It hasn’t been that I haven’t had things to write about, but rather, I think because I’ve been busying myself with so many more things that I wanted and needed to do for our family as well as for myself. 

I’ve been able to spend more time focused on the kids. I’ve been cooking a lot more, and not only cooking, but learning new techniques and preparing more things from scratch.  I’ve been regularly attending (and even teaching) Ladies Bible Class. I’ve had time to read (love my Nook!). I’ve been able to be involved more in the student center work where my husband is the campus minister. I’ve been able to generally keep the house in better order. I’ve had time to work on starting my photography business (which, by the way, is not replacing my full time work).  I’ve had time to work on cleaning out things in the house (although I feel like this process is never-ending, perhaps because I feel like I’m cleaning out and organizing from years of neglect in the house). I’ve had time to actually sit back and breathe. I’m not nearly as stressed or overwhelmed as when I was working full time.

I admit that the transition from my work-at-home life to stay-at-home life hasn’t always been easy, and I need to do better in many aspects. Life is still busy and crazy. But, I am doing so many things that I had wanted to do for so long and just hadn’t physically had the time to do. I’m getting to be the stay-at-home wife and stay-at-home mama I’ve always wanted to be. I love it!

5 Reasons (of many!) I Love Being a Stay at Home Mama

1. I get to watch my children grow up throughout the day almost everyday.
2. It helps me fulfill my duty as the keeper of the home (Titus 2:5). {Please don’t mistake this for me meaning that I think you can’t fulfill Titus 2:5 if you work outside the home.}
3. I get to see my children fight together, but also laugh and smile together.
4. I’m blessed (and challenged) with the primary responsibility of training my children – from the mundane to the important.
5. I don’t have to worry about their care or how they’ve been acting or what they’ve done because I’m their caregiver and I know what has been going on with them throughout the day.

 

Pep Talk

I love the time of year between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I love the atmosphere of this time of year: everything from Christmas cookies to finding and wrapping the perfect gift to driving around looking at Christmas lights to receiving Christmas cards in the mail to traveling to see family and friends.

Time seems to fly more quickly these days, especially as I watch my children grow.  We haven’t even reached Christmas yet this year, and I already feel like this time between Thanksgiving and Christmas has passed too quickly. Throughout this time I’ve felt a bit too spread thin, and, not only have I felt like I haven’t had much time to relish the season, but I have also felt like I haven’t been able to do many of the things I’ve wanted to accomplish. I had great plans to do lots of fun Christmas activities with Ella (who is really getting engaged into the whole idea of Christmas), but we’ve only managed to do two of the many fun ideas I’ve found.  After three Christmases searching, I finally bought material to make Christmas stockings, but I didn’t even make it to the point of pulling the sewing machine out of the box.

This post isn’t about complaining, but simply a reality check for me. I can’t be everywhere at once. I probably won’t get everything done on my to-do list because it is too long and unrealistic in the first place. With two little ones in the house, projects will inevitably get put off and plans will change. Ella and Troy were both sick for a week (my husband and I didn’t feel great either). And, besides actually dealing with kids that didn’t feel good, we also had to deal with the severe lack of sleep (the kids don’t sleep well when they are sick and they share a room which only complicates that problem). On top of sick kiddos, I almost sliced the tip off of my index finger (so, please ignore any typos in this post), and was out of commission for an entire evening after that incident (what can I say, I have an extremely week stomach for almost slicing the tip of my finger off). Things types of things are not things to be worried or bothered by; they are simply things (and not really big things) that happen in life from time to time. But, I need to give myself that pep talk when I get bogged down by these things. And, when I say that I need to give myself a pep talk, I really mean that I need to listen to my husband’s encouraging words (because he is always the one who realizes I need the pep talk).

Hopefully this last week before Christmas will be a chance for me to slow down and breathe a little. As long as I actually figure out what to get for the last few folks on our Christmas list . . .

Proverbs 31:10

As I mentioned a couple of posts back, my friend Kristen over at Bringing Up Benjamin is starting a weekly discussion about being a godly woman. The discussion started yesterday, and I'm already behind, but at least I'm getting to it now. Check out Kristen's post and the comments for this week's discussion!

I'm around young Christian women quite often, and many times in discussion this passage and its entire context (Proverbs 31:10-31) is brought up as a passage to study. There is a reason these verses are brought up frequently! As a Christian woman, I should be striving to be like the woman of Proverbs 31. I'm thankful for this opportunity to study these verses individually and conduct an in-depth study with other women.

Proverbs 31:10 (NKJV): "Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies."


The woman of Proverbs 31 is rare and valuable. She is rare and valuable, not because of her outer appearance or even who her spouse is, but rather because of her inner qualities. She is rare and valuable because she is virtuous.

Virtuous is one of those words we (well, at least I don't) don't use often in our everyday speech. In fact, the last time I remember thinking about the word virtuous (or more specifically virtue) was when I was involved in a study about 2 Peter 1:5-7 where Peter instructs Christians to add virtue to their faith. So what does virtuous mean? One of the definitions on Dictionary.com is "morally excellent;" in fact, the English Standard Version actually translates the word "virtuous" as "excellent." Although the word "excellent" is often used casually in our language today, I think we can perhaps grasp the idea of "morally excellent" a little easier than "virtuous." When I think about something that is excellent, I think about something that is high above something else or of a superior quality. Therefore to be morally excellent, one must be of "superior quality" in their morals - how one speaks, displays themselves, and acts.

Proverbs 31:10 clearly indicates that it is rare to find a wife who exhibits morally excellency, and that she is very valuable. To whom is she valuable? If you continue to read the verses following Proverbs 31:10, you'll find that she is valuable to not only her spouse (31:11-12,28), but to her children (31:28), to the poor and needy (31:20), as well as to others around her (31:15, 24).

I'm always thinking of Ella, and the things I must teach her so that she will choose to be a faithful godly woman one day. When thinking of this verse in particular, I want to compel her to realize that not only should she strive to be a virtuous wife, but that she should be rare when considering the women of the world. I want her to find a husband who values that rarity.

I pray for her and her possible future spouse (although admittedly not as often as I should) and I encourage you to do the same for your children, in private and in front of your children. Consider the impact on your children when they have heard you pray for them and their future spouse as they grow up! This idea was brought to my attention in Your Mama Don't Dance by Glenn and Cindy Colley - a great Christian parenting book that I think all Christian parents should read.

The Need for Tranquility

You might think that the title of this post seems a bit odd for someone who is the mother of an eleven-month-old, but hear me out. Recently I started reading You're Singing My Song by Glenn and Cindy Colley, a Bible-based book dealing with marriage. I haven't finished reading it yet, but I've really been enlightened by some of the things I've read up to this point. Some things I've read have really made me think about how perhaps I've allowed myself to grow into some bad practices - some that I really ought to grow out of.

I'm not even sure how to properly characterize this particular practice I want to eliminate, but I know what word accurately describes the desired end result: tranquility. One of the first chapters in the book deals with the idea that a wife should have a meek (gentle) and quiet spirit from this passage in 1 Peter 3:1-4:

"Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, when they observe your chase conduct accompanied by fear. Do not let your adornment be merely outward - arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel - rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God."

My life can (and does) become so overwhelming and stressful at times, but much of that is because I allow it to become that way. I want my life to be still, peaceful - tranquil and free from unnecessary stress. I want to help make our home a place of comfort, safety, coziness, and security - a refuge from the world. However, if my spirit isn't gentle and quiet, our home cannot properly exhibit those qualities.

For me personally, one of the greatest barriers to me exhibiting a quiet spirit is time management (or perhaps discipline might be another way to put it). I must learn to properly allot my time. I have caused much stress on myself, as well as my husband, because I don't appropriately allot my time. I don't mean that I need to schedule every minute of my day. Rather, I need to realize what things I need to spend my time doing and what things I don't need to spend my time doing. For those things that I deem necessary to spend time doing, I need to figure out how much time I really should be spending on them. Some things I ought to spend more time doing, and some things I ought to spend less time doing.

I hope that I can transform into a person that doesn't bring unnecessary stress into the home. I hope that as a wife and mother I can provide my family with comfort and security - tranquility - by properly fulfilling my role as the keeper of the home.

Coupons, Baby Food, and a Milk Allergy

I sure hope you don't get tired of reading about my great finds with coupons! :) I posted recently about a great deal I found at Target which was partially due to the coupons I had in my coupon stash. While specific finds I post about aren't always going to be current, the point I want to make is the following: you really can save money with couponing. I wasn't convinced of this at first, but as I've collected my coupons I've proven myself wrong.

My recent shopping trip to Walmart was another example of how I was able to stock up because of some coupons I had in my stash. Here is what I got for a total of $10.17 (before coupons).

• Beech-nut Multigrain Cereal - $1.72
• Beech-nut Let's Grow Arrowroot cookies - $1.78
• Beech-nut Let's Grow Banana cookies - $1.78
• 2 Beech-nut Let's Grow Tummy Trays (Turkey Vegetable) - $1.72 x 2=$3.44
• Beech-nut Cinnamon Raisin Granola Stage 3 Baby Food - $0.82
• Beech-nut Whole Grain Cereal with Raspberries Stage 3 Baby Food - $0.63

I had two coupons for BOGO (buy one get one free) of the Let's Grow line of products. I also had a coupon for a FREE container of cereal (up to a $2.00 value) as well as a coupon for two FREE jars of baby food (up to $1.50 value). My coupons for these products totaled $6.61.

• 2 BOGO of the Let's Grow products. I bought a total of 4 Let's Grow products so I got 2 of these items free -$1.72 x 2 = $3.44
• 1 FREE container of cereal - $1.72
• 2 FREE jars of baby food - $0.82+$0.63 = $1.45

So, my price for all seven of these items after coupons was $3.56 ($10.17-$6.61).

On a somewhat different topic (but not completely), we're pretty sure that Ella has at least a milk-protein intolerance (if not an allergy). Ella has been on formula for a long time (maybe someday I'll write about why I'm not nursing, but I won't bore you now). We tried many different types of formula . . . she spit up terribly on all of them. I started adding cereal to her bottles (because I had read that would minimize spitting up). We discovered she did best on soy, but she still spit up a lot. I discussed this with the pediatrician, and he suspected she was lactose intolerant because I'm slightly lactose intolerant and she did better on the soy formula. He also said he expected her spitting up problem to get better as she got older; after all, some babies just spit up a lot. Months went on, and Ella was still spitting up - A LOT. I was always covered in spit up and smelled like soy formula (which smells disgusting, by the way). I figured this spitting up was just normal, although the other babies around Ella's age didn't seem to have this same problem.

Then we introduced yogurt to Ella . . .she loved it, but the spitting up was 10x (ok, maybe only 5x) worse than before. We tried a few different times, confirming that the yogurt was the cause for the increase in spit up. I talked to the pediatrician at her next appointment, and, after describing the issue with the yogurt, he mentioned the possibility of a milk protein intolerance or allergy. He suggested we try different dairy products to see how she reacted to them. One day we noticed that Ella got a rash on her face where cheese had touched her face. We also noticed an increase in the spit up when she ate anything with milk in it, but this spit up was just above her "baseline" of spit up she always had. Then I read about Gerber cereals. And I read that Gerber cereals contain milk-protein even though it is not listed in any way on the ingredient list. We'd been adding Gerber cereal to Ella's bottle from a young age to help with the spit up problem. We stopped adding Gerber cereal to her bottle. Ella has virtually quit spitting up. She is like a completely different baby in that regard. Now, as she's trying all sorts of new table foods, I'm careful to pay attention to if something might have milk in it. Now, to tie this in to my post about the Beech-nut products . . .

This was my first time buying the Beech-nut brand of baby food products. I was really excited about purchasing them for Ella because I had read that they didn't have any type of milk protein hidden in their products (if it is in it, it is listed). We gave Ella the Beech-nut cereal at lunch today, and she didn't have any issues spitting up this afternoon. Tonight we gave her some of the cookies (I'm not sure which ones, my husband gave them to her), and the spit up came back in full force. :( I honestly don't know if the issue was with the cereal or the cookies (or possibly both). I suspect the cookies because of when she spit up, but I'm not sure.

This process has taught me something as a new mom: if something doesn't seem right with Ella, it probably isn't. I was really concerned with her spit up, but was told it was normal by the pediatrician. To his defense, I really don't think I was categorizing the spit up properly, but I didn't know at the time. What I've been calling spit up is probably more accurately described as throw up, but I honestly didn't realize it. Now I know . . .

(Side note: The price of jarred baby food is one of the reasons I chose to make Ella's baby food (well, most of the time!). Check out my blog about making her baby food.)

****Update**** My husband looked at the Arrowroot cookie box . . . below the ingredients, in red lettering no-less, it says it contains milk. I have no idea how I missed this before . . . I looked carefully (or so I thought) at the ingredients list in the store. Oh well, now I know! The banana cookies, however, did not contain milk and Ella loved them!

Forming My Relationship with Ella

Ella and I have both had a cold the past few days, and I've almost completely lost my voice from it. I've lost my voice so bad that my husband can't really hear me sitting on the next couch over from me. This is the first time that I've lost my voice since I've had Ella, and it made me realize something - I sing to Ella a lot. I sing spiritual songs and educational songs to her. Sometimes I sing crazy things to her that probably only a mom can understand (I'm not kidding when I say I sing songs about changing her clothing or changing her diaper, but you do what you do to make a baby smile!).

Losing my voice also made me realize that I talk to Ella a lot. I talk to her about many different things ranging from the silly to the serious. I know you are probably thinking, how serious can a conversation with a 9-month old be? But honestly, I talk to her about things she doesn't understand yet and things she won't understand for many more years to come, but a large part of my conversation with her is a training process for me. I need to be able to talk to her about silly things and about serious things. I need to be able to talk to her about physical things and spiritual things. I need to be able to talk to her not only so I can form a very special relationship with her, but also so that my husband and I can bring her up in the Lord.

In a Christian parenting book I read recently called Your Mama Don't Dance, the authors (Glenn and Cindy Colley) make the point that parents who get the attention of their teens are the parents who gave attention to their toddlers. It is important to me to start forming my relationship with my daughter now, while she is still young. I highly recommend Your Mama Don't Dance- this book has given me many great ideas for raising children in the Lord. One of the authors, Cindy Colley, also has a blog you might want to check out.