Christmas Season

Is it just me or is this year literally flying by? I can't believe that it is almost Christmas (whoo hoo!) - it's my favorite season! How can you not be happy sitting next to a big tree, cuddled up in an electric blanket and sipping hot chocolate while watching any and every ABC family Christmas movie on t.v? Mike and I are slowly getting the house ready and I hope to have everything outside done by the end of the week! Here is what we have so far....


Tree number 1 - only partially decorated. Emma has decided she LOVES talking ornaments down so this year I have a feeling we will only be decorating from the middle of the tree up!


Stockings over the mantle.... still have 2 more to put up but I did not have enough stocking holders. That will be another item on the list of things to get this weekend.


This gem is the dining room ...although it looks a bit like Santa's workshop. There is green and red, ornaments, boxes and everything else absolutely everywhere in here! I am making tulle wreathes like the one shown here for the outsides of the bedroom doors upstairs. As soon as I finish those I am making garland wreathes for all of the windows outsides. I am thinking about opening an etsy shop for the wreathes - they are SO easy to make and very inexpensive. Everywhere you look people are selling these things for over $100 so I figure I can make a bit of money myself by selling mine for a slightly lower price. Anybody want to be my first customer??


Lastly, this is the dining room buffet table (ignore the boxes in the corner..like I said...Santa's workshop!). How cute is that kid on the plate?? :)

I can't wait to get everything all cleaned up, organized and decorated! I am even thinking about hosting an ugly sweather Christmas party this year. I have seen so many fun ideas on Pinterest about hot chocolate bars, DIY sweaters and much more. Anyway, it's getting really late - I have no clue why I am still up! Emmalyn has been waking up around 5am every morning wide awake and ready to start her day.... wish mama felt that way at 5am!!

Happy Thanksgiving & sick baby

Sorry for the delay in writing... I have been dealing with a very sick baby the last few months. The poor girl has a constant stream of ear infections, sinus infections, viruses and who knows what else. After countless doctor visits (where I jokingly and not so jokingly asked if they handed out coupons to frequent flyers to help with copays) we are being referred to a pulmonologist for some testing. The doctors feel like she could possibly have an underlying food allergy, such as wheat or dairy, and they want to test her for auto-immune deficiencies. I would much rather she have some type of food allergy than something else wrong...but it also makes me sad thinking about how hard it would be for her to grow up and see all the other kids in school eating cakes, cookies, brownies at parties, etc and having to miss out. My cousin has celiac disease and it was so hard for her to adjust to living gluten free. The more I read about what is allowed in the food that we put into our bodies the more I feel that we should go for a completely unprocessed and natural diet, anyway. I have thought about this for several years now but my husband hates vegetables and anything else good for him! He will literally go through the trash searching for "hidden ingredients" and he is super paranoid about every night when I make dinner. Ok, so I made the mistake several years ago of telling him that I regularly hid squash in the spaghetti sauce and he hasn't let me forget it.... 4 years of marriage later I am getting more creative in the ways that I hide the healthy food... I won't put it in here just in case he happens to stumble across this post at some point :)

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving! I hope everyone has a safe holiday. We are planning to do the Drumstick Dash 5k, eat lots of good food and put up all of our Christmas decorations! I will try to post pictures later!

Healthy Pumpkin Bread

Yesterday I made healthy pumpkin bread, I used the recipe from 100daysofrealfood.com but changed a few things around. My husband doesn't like cloves - and I don't know that I've ever had anything with cloves in it - so I left that out. At work today one of my coworkers said it was good, but something was missing (maybe it was the cloves!). The full recipe is as follows:

1 ½ cups whole-wheat flour (I used King Arthur’s white whole-wheat flour)

1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon nutmeg

⅛ teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

2 eggs

½ cup oil (I used coconut oil)

½ cup honey

½ teaspoon vanilla

1 cup pumpkin puree

½ cup chopped tree nuts (optional)

 

I left out the ginger, cloves, baking soda (because I just didn't have any) and the nuts. Despite all the missing ingredients it was still yummy and it made me feel good that I wasn't eating a million calories. Even better, I felt okay giving it to Emma - and I'm really picky about the things I let in her body! She loved it! To give it a bit of a sweeter taste I used a pumpkin icing recipe from skinny taste using cream cheese, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon and a few others things. This recipe definitely made me ready for fall! In fact, it has inspired me to finish my fall wreath. The only thing left is to hot glue the fake pumpkin and leaves to the mesh and it will be ready to hang up! Pictures to follow next post :)

Emma turned 1!

Wow it has been a long time since I have posted! Honestly, I am a terrible blogger but I REALLY want to get better. I love the idea that years down the road I can look back at how I was thinking and feeling. I find it even more exciting to think that Emmalyn will be able to someday see what her ol' mom was doing while she was tucked away fast-asleep for the night (or a few hours at least). We are going through this teething thing and it is brutal. Everyone told me to watch out for the molars... and they were right! Over the last 2 months it is basically like having a newborn again. There is something really special about baby cuddles in the middle of the night, but the same can be said for waking up in the morning and realizing that you and your child have slept peacefully through the whole night! Does anyone out there remember what that feels like??

For those who read this and don't know...Emmalyn turned a year in August! It is surreal to me that I have a one year old. More than that, she is a doll baby and her smile is infectious! How did I get so lucky?? We took her to get 1 year birthday pictures done and these are a few things that came out of the photo shoot:

 

Thanks to Elizabeth Avery Photography for all the cute pictures! I made the lollipop bouquet after seeing a picture on Pinterest and then used them as centerpieces at her birthday party. The entire party was incredible...but I will post about that separately when I have a bit more time.

Life has continued to be hectic but I have started trying to make cooking a bigger priority - stay tuned for some of my latest meals. I have really been getting inspiration from 100daysofrealfood.com and skinnytaste.com. My goal is to ultimately eliminate all processed foods, but at this point I am focusing on harm reduction. I have to get my hubby on board the vegetable train :)

Life in 5 years

In 5 years, I will be 31…almost 32 years old. When I was growing up I used to think that by 26 (my current age) that I would have it all together. Some days I am lucky if I can find matching socks, and I just constantly think about how I still don’t feel like a grown up. For a long time I thought once I graduated college and got married I would feel like a grown up, but I did graduate, I got married and I still was waiting for that feeling of being an adult. Then I thought…once I have a baby I will for sure feel like a grown up… and I had a baby. What I can say is this… While I no doubt have many more responsibilities and my days of being completely carefree are gone… I am still waiting for that adult to appear. Maybe everyone feels like that. I will never be as grown up as my parents. I will always look to them for advice and I will constantly feel unsure…and maybe that’s even okay. However, today I started thinking about my life and what it would look like in an ideal world.

At 32…I see my sweet little baby, almost 6 years old. Maybe I even see an addition or two to the family by then. I see my days wrapped up in hugs, kisses, and smiles. I’m not sure what it means for my career. I love the idea of being a stay at home mom. I think that is my ultimate goal. I want to be more involved in my church and community. I might want to volunteer with domestic violence victims or children in violent homes. I want to feel like I’m not just going through the motions like I am these days. Get up, get myself ready, get Emma ready, go to work, get Emma dinner, get me and Mike dinner, give Emma a bath, short play time, put her to bed, clean up house, do homework, go to bed. Repeat. I would never trade even a second of my precious time with Emma or Mike… but I want to learn to relish and enjoy every single moment…even the repetitive moments. My whole life has just been a “if I can get to this..then I will..” and I want to not worry at all about anything…and I want to be content in all situations. I want to find the good and happiness in wherever I am. I know I don’t have a PERFECT life… but I have a pretty great one…with really great people who I love and I know love me.  

How does everyone else get through the monotony of everyday life (chores, responsibilities)?

Proverbs 31 woman

Have you read about the Proverbs 31 woman? This woman is fierce. She wakes up before the rest of her family, she works hard all day, she is thoughtful in her actions, she gives to the needy, and she makes clothing and bed linens. She is beautiful, blessed and speaks with knowledge and dignity. Wow. I didn’t even pack my husband’s lunch last night because I wanted to get to bed a little early to catch up on my 19 Kids and Counting episodes on DVR. I always think about the type of person I want to be and here is my general list:

·         Confident

·         Creative

·         Educated

·         A good manager of my time: I want to follow lists and charts and make sure that no minute is ever wasted

·         Skinny: I want to wake up early and exercise, eat better

·         Family oriented: I want to do things with my daughter and husband to build memories

·         Rich: I don’t want to worry about money and I want all debt to be paid off

·         Organized: I want my house to always be clean

·         Respected: I want to have integrity and be someone that others can look up to

·         Trustworthy

·         An unshakable Christian: I pretty much want to be Joyce Meyer

A third of this list seems realistic, a third seems questionable, and the other third is downright selfish and probably never going to happen. My list is written in no particular order, but it is interesting to note that I thought about being skinny and rich before I thought about wanting to be trustworthy or a good Christian. Sometimes I just wonder what in the world is wrong with me and pray that my daughter doesn’t turn out like her crazy mama. However, I do know that anything good that I want for myself, God wants that for me too! He wants me to be confident…because he made me “fearfully and wonderfully”. Nobody on Earth is like me and he wants me to be happy with myself! God doesn’t even think it’s bad that I want money. Money makes the world go round… it puts food on the table, give to reputable charities and allows us to make special memories with family. God just doesn’t want me to worship money or put more stock in it than I do him. I think in general I am a person of extremes. I also married a man of extremes…although we are on opposite spectrums. I want to be organized and good at time-management but truthfully it is easier for me to kick my shoes off in the middle of the hallway as I am walking, leave my clothes in the floor and be perpetually late for every appointment. I guess this would be a good example of having to practice self control. Just because I can leave everything a mess, doesn’t mean I should – and it certainly doesn’t get me any closer to being a Proverbs 31 woman. As is the case with all my life lessons… It is about the baby steps.

Supplier of my Needs

“And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” Philippians 4:19

 

I think I spend far too much time worried about finances. So much time, thought and energy is put into trying to figure out how to pay the bills, how to make sure we have food, how to pay my daughter’s daycare bills. I am also ashamed to admit that I do not want to just scrape by – I want to flourish. Growing up was hard for me because we didn’t have much money. My mom worked three jobs and tried her hardest, but it just wasn’t there for a really long time. Yet, even then God supplied everything we needed. I may not have had the best of everything – but I always had everything I needed. My mom told me that sometimes she would put dish towels on me as a diaper because she simply did not have the money to buy any. She then told me about amazing ways that God used people to help her, like when the landlord came by to collect rent. My mom told her that she just didn’t have the money but was working hard to get it. The landlord saw the dishtowel being used as a diaper, and not only accepted that my mom didn’t have the rent – but also came back later with a pack of diapers. Stories like this make me feel selfish and also deep down make me want to hoard diapers of every size so that this would never happen to me or my child now.

 

I started thinking about all of the things God has given me: a beautiful family complete with a patient husband, a beautiful baby girl, and two step boys that have the sweetest hearts. I have parents and siblings that would do anything for me, and my husband’s family is the exact same way. My family and I are healthy. We have a roof over our heads, and ample space to grow. We have never gone hungry. We have new cars. We have jobs. Putting it all in writing makes me feel pretty lousy that I still want. I want to own a home of our own, I want to get rid of the bondage of our credit card bills and pay all of our regular bills on time without worrying about where the money will come from. I want to put my daughter in dance someday and buy her cute clothing. And yet she has never gone without clothes…or diapers. Putting it all in writing gives perspective. God has never allowed me to go without, nor do I think he ever will. So what is my problem? I think a lot of my wanting comes from my flesh. I have been told by more than one person, and on more than one occasion that I will never be completely satisfied – and I think there has always been truth in that. I have found my value in the things that I own, the clothes that I wear, the status of my relationship – and not in the God that gives me all of these things.

 

I know that any real and lasting change can’t be fixed overnight, isn’t instant gratification another one of those character flaws that many of us battle with? When I was pregnant with my daughter I gained 70lbs because I gave myself permission to eat anything and everything that I wanted. My entire life I battled with dieting and finding the weight that I was comfortable at – but only recently, when trying to get this weight off, was I able to realize that a diet was not what I needed. I needed a life change. I have slowly tried to change my eating habits. If I want pizza, I eat pizza – just not the entire pizza. If I want ice cream, I have a scoop of ice cream – but not the pint. I think sometimes our relationship with God is a lot like this. It’s easy to go to church and feel peace and forgiveness, but it’s pretty hard to keep those feelings through the chaos of a Monday-Friday work week if you are not spending time reflecting and talking with God. I think my goal for a while will be to stop telling God all of the things I need in my life to make me happy, and just thank him for all of the things he has already given me. I am praying for a change of heart that accepts every circumstance and situation. Money, no money, in good and bad – I will be praying for peace that passes all understanding.