Desperate: Hope For the Mom Who Needs to Breathe by Sarah Mae and Sally ...

This is such an amazing book my friend Sarah Mae with Sally Clarkson catch the heart of a mother and her daily struggles. If your a mom please read this book.

When God Says “Hey Wake –Up I want to show you something”

             I have been a wife for almost 15 years and a mom for almost as long, when I became a wife I decided how I wanted my life to be.  I carried in some pretty heavy baggage from my childhood, some baggage that didn’t even make sense. Why did I feel so heavy? I was never abused physically, sexually or anything like that.  All I knew was I was going to raise my kids to have a different life than I did. I was going to be the calm loving gentle mom that I desperately craved.   What I didn’t expect was that no matter how hard I tried something would happen and I would fail. I would go to bed after a really rough day of homeschooling gone wrong, flooded toilets, and a toddler that was deciding their strength could out beat mine and I would vow to myself the next day would be better. Tomorrow I will be a better mom, I will be patient and talk softly, the house will stay clean and I will get all caught up on laundry.  I could go days sometimes even weeks with really great days and then it would happen.  I would get upset and the cycle of beating myself up would continue….again.

It wasn’t until recently I was able to see this huge list of things that I was doing to cope with pain. The list was pretty big.  I would lie in my bed thinking ‘how did I not see all this stuff that I do to make myself deal?’  Avoidance, withdrawing, perfectionism, self-pity, blaming, self-justification and that is just naming a few! Slowly as I started to look at some of these things I could see when and where I started these behaviors at young age.   I could go on but I’m sure you get the point, I am realizing EVERYONE does this! EVERYONE copes with pain on some level and it comes out when situations rub us and bring out emotion. When I start looking at the things that bring out emotion I can see where the root of the pain is.
  
I am a girl who LOVES her girlfriends!
                              LOVES!
I have always loved meeting for coffee, hanging out with our kids, going for walks etc… But there is a dark side to my friendships I have never felt like I was a valued friend to someone else.  I never felt like my friendship was worth fighting for. I would place my value on different situations that would come up.  These wounds would cause me to build walls around my heart and protect myself.  If I feared rejection I would just not put myself in a place to be rejected or I would do the opposite and try to put myself out there but I would expect rejection and like a self-fulfilling prophecy it would happen. The wound would fester deeper and deeper and I would believe the lie that I am UN likeable etc. The unlikeable wound is a deep one for me I can still hear my mother’s words as a small child “I love you but I don’t like you” and from the moment the words left her lips
 I believed her and placed it on every relationship from that point on.  My mother’s words came from her own infected wounds that spilled onto her children. The sad truth of it is if we don’t get to these roots we continue to do the same to our children. L 
As I slowly continue to do inventory of my heart and as situations arise I am able to let Jesus in and have   his spirit pour over the infection.  It’s slow. It’s painful and at times extremely lonely. I know I am nowhere close to done, but I have hope that as I keep my eyes on Jesus the author and finisher of our faith he will complete His perfect work in me.

                                  Some see being broken as a flaw, but God sees it as beauty.

Structures

This is a hot air balloon.

This is a covered wagon.

I recently picked up these straws and connectors for the kids, I have this book on building structures and different idea's to building your own. When the bigger kids were younger we used things like toothpicks and marshmallows or spaghetti noodles, but I likes that we could re-use these.
My kids imaginations always surprises me, it's amazing to see what they can create. This also was a great way to explain 3D object to them.





This is a rocket.

My Dream

For a Christain, having babies is not about birthing pains, changing diapers or baking cookies (though it includes of these). Having babies is about transfprming the world forever. This investment will last not for thirty years, not for my lifetime, but  f-o-r-e-v-e-r. The investment is realized on earth and pays dividends for eternity. On earth, we pray that these children will advance the very kingdom of God. But in heaven, the souls of every redeemed child will stand with me throughout eternity before the Lord Jesus. The pressures of today (be financial, physical, etc.) that taunt Christians to self consciously distort God's fruitful purpose for the womb, and to separate life from love, will seem infinitesimally small as we look back upon this whisper of a life with our children beside us in eternity.

My children can have more far-reaching implications for society and posterity than anything else I can do. Having babies and training children for Jesus Christ means my life work will last forever. I refuse to accept the minimizing, selfish, materialistic, and limited vision of womanhood dispensed by the apostles of modernity and relevancy in this generation. My dream is far greater. -Beall Phillips

 

Happy 2nd Birthday Baby Hannah

 

Tonight we celebrated her birthday with dinner and presents, Hannah LOVES shoes and got 3 different pairs. She would shriek with so much enthusiasm every time she opened a gift.

I decorated with hearts this year; she often makes me feel like my cup over flows.  I look at her some days and I am just amazed by the Lord’s mercy, three little girls to raise into womanhood.

 

                                         The theme suited her so well; she really will melt your heart.

Trying so hard to hold up 2 fingers.

 

Hannah is my party all the time, even when she is all by herself. This little girl makes us laugh all day long she is such an extrovert it’s hilarious.  She is amazing full of life and drama!

When we are in stores she will yell out at the top of her lungs “MARCO!!!!” hoping someone will yell back “POLO!!” sometimes she has some luck and people laugh and stare because she is just so little with this loud voice.  It makes me laugh because this girl of mine is teaching me to lighten up. Everything doesn’t have to be so serious. I wish I knew what I do now with number seven with my first few. I ignore and overlook so much now when it's not important.  I can see now with seven what is attitude or disobedience, but I allow for childishness and age appropriate inappropriateness. This transition has made mothering my little Hannah so enjoyable. 

 

Card Making

    I  took some birthday pictures of Hannah and I saw an idea online to make them into Valentine's Day Cards.
 I edited the photo's with  text one says "Love never fails" and the other says " I love you"
 These little cards turned out so sweet we plan to give them out at Hannah's birthday party..
With Valentine's Day just a week away we have been thinking of different idea's to *love your neighbor as yourself*. I have a few idea's in my head we will see how the week plays out to do everything I woud like.

 We also made some valentine's owls and lady bugs out of paper plates they now line the side of my refrigerator.  Even though Valentines's Day is a week away last week my husband left me a 3 page letter beside my bed and flowers.  One of the most amazing things about Chris is that he really does speak to me in a way that I can hear him. I love the spoken word when it is backed up by actions.

Ice Cream

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                Natalie just finished reading Anne of Green Gables, after that the children all watched the movie together.  The part where Anne tastes ice cream for the first time caught my attention. Back in the fall I had bought the Homestead Blessings Dairy Delights when we got our cow, I had really wanted to try ice cream. I looked in a couple antique shops trying to find a ice cream maker but everywhere I went people were giving me confused looks of why I didn't want an electric one.

 

So we tried to make ice cream with SNOW.

A bowl full of snow, raw milk (cream) and some vanilla syrup.

It's wasn't creamy like store bought but tasted pretty good.

                  

                            The kids built a luge track that is huge this video just doesn't show how big it is.
                          I love watching them have races everyday after school.