My baby is a year! goodness me.

How in the world did this little love.....

Become this not so little love????



Happy happy birthday to my sweet Sidney Claire!! We just love you so much. It's so hard when you are pregnant to imagine another little life in your family and then just like that, after you are born it's impossible to imagine life without you! What a blessing you are to our family. You are quite the rascle and are everywhere. You might possibly be the worlds fastest crawler! :) Not walking yet but why would you when you can crawl the speed of light?! You want to do everything the other three do, and you notice when you are left out. You love all foods, no matter what and you eat everything. No more bottle for you but you do love your sippy. I'm pretty sure you are teething like crazy and have been quite the cranky girl lately but you are still the cutest cranky one year old ever :) :) You love to go to bed when you are tired, not tired, not so much. You LOVE daddy and want him the moment he walks in the door. You find your siblings so funny and no one can make you belly laugh quite like them. You LOVE your binkey, and would prefer for me to let you have it all day long. You are my first girl to take one and I must say it is so nice to have it when you are cranky! You LOVE bath time, which is funny b/c you had a STRONG dislike when you were tiny. Oh and music, you love music, but when we play Amazing Grace by Chris Tomlin in the car you sing! It is seriously the sweetest thing ever. You give such good kisses and love to pat people that you love. This first year flew by and I just pray that I can slow myself and our lives down enough to be able to say I am taking full advantage of ever moment I get to be your mommy! I am truly blessed!

Reminded..

Sometimes I forget. Well I forget a lot :) But I very often get so use to my surroundings that I take everything for granted. And then God see's this and sends something my way that really makes me truly see. That happened this week. Kyle and I have always had a huge heart for marriage. For what God call's it to be and what it can be if done IN HIM. Well this week circumstances made it painfully obvious the pain that is around us all, right in the middle of the church pews we sit in. Truley broke my heart and had me on my knees. But also made me hug my sweet husband a little tighter. Made me watch how I spoke to him a little closer. I am thankful. I am thankful we are both not perfect but in our reaching toward God together, it has made us very strong. Marriage is such a special creation from the Lord. Something he knew would bring us great joy, but also teach us a ton about obedience.

Funny that isn't something you hear much in marriage ceremonies. You hear a lot of happiness. And don't get me wrong God want's our marriages to glorify Him., and in that there is a lot of joy to be had. But the thing that doesn't get mentioned much is that the marriage bond is just as much or more about submission on both parts AND obeying God. That it is not all about you, at all really. Sometimes we are both on the same track, both keeping our eyes to the heavens therefore both loving and respecting each other as we should, and we are happy. Sometimes we are not and then we have a chance to show grace like no one else can. It's funny that when there are issues you find the other spouse saying "they don't....." fill in the blank because there is a list a mile long when talking about something wrong your spouse does. Just because we are human, living in a sinful world there is bound to be TONS of things your spouse does wrong. But we are called to love them, forgive them, respect them not because that is what we wont to do but because that is what God calls us to do. When we got married we listened to this sermon on cd that a friend let us listen too, and I remember something that I heard that stuck with me all this time. He said something to the effect of when you get married you should picture yourself getting bricked up in a room on all four sides. You can love huge in there or you can drag down fight in there but you are in there to stay. A aha! moment for sure. What a great illustration of what marriage means. It doesn't mean you are in a room with a small window just in case it gets too hot. There is no locked door with a key just in case you need to escape.

I love Kyle with all I am. I love him more than I did almost 7 years ago when I married Him. He is a wonderful father and an amazing husband. God has transformed him into such an amazing man, and that is my prayer for all out there that do not know what marriage can be like in the arms of Jesus. I love Kyle that much but I love God more. And that , thus far, is the reason we are a success. Not because we are that good, or bad things have not come our way. But because my strength comes from the Lord. My love comes from Him even when I am all tapped out. And the biggest, my forgiveness comes from Him when I have just plain messed up. I find it much easier to ask for forgiveness from Kyle after I already know I have repented and been forgivin by God. And same the other way around. Much easier to forgive Him for his shortcoming since I know I have been forgiven when I am less than worthy.

I am praying right now for healing in the many marriages that are hurting right now. I am praying that we as a Christian family, stand up for what marriage is really about not what our sinful, selfish society has turned it into. And I pray that the ones of us that God has imparted wisdom too have to drive to come up alongside others and live life with them, that is really what we are called to do. Live in community and help build each other up in Christ!

Trust

So my blog has been less than kept up :) It's so easy to download pics on Facebook I have found myself doing that a ton more. But I've missed the words of this blog. I've always been a writer, for as long as I can remember. And so I'm back :) And excited to be writing more again. I've missed it!

So Kyle and I have been on a huge trust journey together recently. Not trust in each other but trust in God. That sounds so crazy because honestly why in the world would I not trust Him. If you look at my life it is filled to the brim with the handy work of God Himself. But I always find myself second guessing where He is calling me to be. And then, if I'm being honest, not listening, if in fact He is saying something I don't want to hear.

Well for a long time Kyle and I (since Sidney was born) well mostly I, thought that I could control when we would have our next baby. I felt a deep since of unrest and no peace in that decision, but I kept holding firm that that is what I wanted. Because I wanted to loose weight, because I wanted some time for me, because I wanted Callie to be 3 before I moved the girls in together, because I enjoy my sleep right now, hmmmmm that sure is a lot of I's. Thank the Lord for my sweet husband. Very kindly, very sweetly, he told me that there was no peace in our fake control over this at all. That he didn't really think it was right and thought we should reconsider our outlook on our family. There, he said it. What I had been feeling deep inside for over a year came out of my precious husbands mouth. If we indeed believe that children are a gift form God, that He is in control, knows what is best for us and gives us everything we could possibly need why in the world was I trying to tell Him what worked for me. No wonder there was no peace in that attitude. So together we obeyed what we both knew God had been telling us for quite some time. And oh the peace! I can't even decide the weight that was lifted when I put God back in the place He belonged. We truly just want what He has planned for our life, and it feels so good to be able to tell people "we just don't know" when ask about our family's future. Trust is a hard hard thing. It takes dieing to self, moment by moment, and it's something I think I will struggle with until I'm called home. But oh the joy of the times when you do just give it all up to Him!

Fast.

Oh my goodness, I just want to eat her up. My baby. My sweet baby girl. She is simply delightful, in all her spunkiness even, completely delightful. I can't believe she is almost one. It's probably the hardest one year old birthday for me yet. I've always had a baby, so even as one was hitting their year milestone I knew I always had another almost here that would hit a year one day. But this month, watching this sweet thing grow fast, and I mean fast! It's a new sadness I have yet to experience. I know us mom's always say we wish we had a pause button, but scanning through pics of all my kids right now, deep inside I would almost do anything to be able to keep my kids this little. And the sad part is there is no stopping it. And it just gets faster and faster. She's going to start walking soon, I'm sure of it... and then there will be six walkers and that will be it. Six walkers, no crawlers, no crawlers even on the horizon... and it makes part of me sad. She is so perfectly squshey right now, soon she will grow more and that baby fat will melt away, yes a pause button right now would be amazing. Boy do I love these kids.