Baby Fever...

"Lo, Children are a heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies at the gate." Psalms 127:3-5

It seems like almost everyone I know is having a baby, or just had a baby. Everywhere I go I see babies! I love babies-it's my favorite stage of childhood. It's just something so sweet and innocent about a baby.  I loved when my girls were that age. Emma and Maci have both grown so fast! Sometimes I just want to slow time down and soak up every second of each and every stage they go through. 

I know most of you have probably seen the TV show on TLC called "19 Kids and Counting."  Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have 20 children! They come under fire from the public so much about the number of children they've chosen to have. They don't believe in birth control and believe that God won't give you more children than you can handle. But how do you make that decision? 

I know my God won't give me more than I can handle. I've put every aspect of my life into His hands. I've said "Here Lord, you take it." And he has...and it's a huge relief for me to know that He is in control and I don't have to be. But why as Christians are we so eager to put everything at His feet except for this?

I know I want more children. But I also want my girls to play sports and dance and have nice things and with several children, that isn't always a possibility. So what do you do? How do you know when enough is enough? How do you know when you're family is complete? I've heard other women say "I'm done!" But I just don't feel that way yet. 

In 2012, is it frowned on to have several children? Should we stick to the cookie cutter 2.5 children? A sweet friend recently told me..."I'll be danged if I'll miss my calling to be the Mother of many.." And I can't seem to get that out of my head. 

Am I missing my calling?

http://blessingsandsimplicity.blogspot.com/2012/02/is-it-natural-to-have-children.html

Finally Snow!!

We had our very first snow of the year today! Only in North Carolina will it be 65 degrees on Saturday and 32 degrees and snow on Sunday! We're all going to be sick! I love the snow but I don't want it to stay long. One day is good enough for me. Thankfully it didn't really start in until after Church and we didn't have to miss part three of "Stupid Cupid."

Here are some pictures from today....

Team Jaxx

http://www2.godanriver.com/news/2012/feb/05/team-jaxx-keeps-faith-ar-1664430/

This is Jaxx Denny. He's an 8 month old little boy from Reidsville. He was born with Thoracic Insufficiency Syndrome.  He has six ribs on his right side that are fused together and he only has 1/3 of his right lung and severe scoliosis. He just underwent a major surgery on Valentine's Day. As worried as I was about Emma that day, I also knew this little boy was going through much more. Please pray for this child. Please pray for his parents. You can follow his journey and get updates through Facebook/Straightening Up.

Osborne Baptist Church in Eden has Team Jaxx t-shirts if anyone would like to show their support for Jaxx. Let me know if you would like one and I can get the information to the right person. 

 

24 and holding...

I can honestly say I feel old today. It seems like I should be celebrating my 18th birthday instead of my 24th. I could have never imagined that when I blew out 24 candles I would be married, have two children and be a teacher. What a dream come true! I really don't know of anything else I could ever wish for! 

I do have a huge praise that I want to share with you all. Yesterday we went for Emma's renogram at Baptist hospital. She had to be strapped to a table, IV in her arm and sedated. As a parent, it's terrible to watch your child go through something like that. It lasted about an hour and once finished we met with the doctor. He said there were no blockages or obstructions and Emma doesn't need any sort of surgery!!! Thank you Jesus! We are so thrilled that she is perfectly healthy and her enlarged kidney won't cause her any issues in the future! God is so good! 

When we go home yesterday afternoon, Emma slept four hours! She was so tired and she needed that sleep. Maci and I played and John ran errands. He came home with a dozen roses and big smile. I knew he would. He always does. Yesterday was Valentine's Day number 7 for us. It's hard to believe that many years have gone by! When Emma woke up, we went outside to play and then went to Mayflower for dinner. I couldn't have asked for anything better. I had John, my two little (healthy) blondies and happiness. 

So today as I celebrate 24 years, I'm so thankful for all of God's blessings. I don't care that I'm another year older. It's just another year I get to be a Mama, wife, friend, sister, daughter.....

Thank you Lord for another birthday!


This is the link to Raising Mighty Arrows. She has a great entry today. It's very inspiring and what I needed to read today!  http://www.raisingmightyarrows.com

Crying it out...

This has been a weekend full of struggles for me. I don't mean to always blog about negative issues-in fact, they aren't all negative. But it is my hope that through my struggles, others won't feel like they are the only person going through these things. You are not alone and through this blog, Facebook, emails and text, I know that I'm not alone either! Thank God for social networking!

My Friday morning just started off bad-and it continued from there. From issues at work all the way to issues at home, Friday put us all in a bad mood.  I thought Saturday would be better because we were planning on being lazy all day-But boy was I wrong! Both girls have been very testy, sleepy, ill, runny noses...you name it, we had it on Saturday.  We took the girls to WalMart to get a few groceries on Saturday morning.  We thought just getting out of the house would make us all feel better-WRONG! I think it made things worse. Then for some reason we got a wild hair Saturday night and thought we'd take the girls out to a nice restaurant for supper.  Well we did, and needless to say I don't even remember what I ate that night-all I remember is the three times I had to take Emma to the bathroom because she was acting up. They both cried the whole way home-25 minutes and once we pulled in the driveway we'd just about had it! 

I made Emma go to bed and tried my best to rock Maci and give her a bottle-this usually puts her right out-but not Saturday night! Emma kept getting up, Maci kept fighting sleep and so finally I took Emma back to her room, dared her to get up again and put Maci in her crib to let her "Cry it Out" for the first time ever.

I sat outside, in between Maci and Emma's  bedroom doors and listened to them both cry. I felt, and still do, like the biggest failure. I thought. "what am I doing that is so wrong?" John says I spoil them too much, meaning that I've always rocked them both to sleep as babies and I always lay down with Emma to read her a bedtime story. What is wrong with that? These may be the only two babies I ever have and I'm going to rock my girls-I don't call that spoiling, I call it loving....But still...

I went to bed that night feeling very defeated. I feel defeated as a teacher, wife and mother. We had a tough week at school with my students, Emma has really been showing out and Maci picks up on it and in turn shows out too, and then John gets upset with me because the girls are acting up and I can't seem to do anything about it. It seems like a lose lose situation. I feel so helpless.

Sunday morning we got up-still ill with each other from the night before and got ready for Church. I was a little nervous about church because I knew it was the kick off to the new campus and there would be lots of people there and new kids that Emma didn't know. We took her to her room first and she did great. She went right with her teacher and started playing. Maci did the same. It was a huge relief! John and I were able to enjoy the service and not worry about the girls. 

I still know that God works in ways that we could never understand. The message was part two of "stupid cupid" a series on marriage. Pastor Allen said something that made both John and I look at each other and laugh- "I've seen lots of marriages end over whether or not socks should be left on the bathroom floor and how to discipline the children"  He talked about having a close relationship with God and once you have that-marriage just falls into place. You don' t have to worry about all the small stuff like socks! I've said this before, but I want my girls to see how great marriage can be from John and I. We still have a long way to go and a lot to work on, but I know the best is yet to come.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend...

Happy Monday!!

How to Bless your spouse...

http://pastorallenholmes.com/

We've just started attending a new Church. We've been wanting to make a change for a long time and we finally found a place we really like. It's close to home and it's youth oriented. The pastor speaks in our terms and uses analogies that we can really understand and relate to. We had our reservations at first because we have been apart of our current Church for so long and we'll definitely miss it but it was time for something different at this point in our lives. Any time you make a big change like this it's scary, but so far it's been great!

This past week they began a new series called "Stupid Cupid." It's all about marriage. When I heard this I was so excited! We need to hear all about marriage, well actually I was really thinking that John needs to hear this message because of course I'm the perfect wife and do everything right....wrong! But I still like to believe it from time to time. 

It was a great sermon, but he said something that really stood out to me. He said we should be saying these words to our spouse every day:

"I live to bless you, inspire you, help you." 

This just spoke volumes to me because that is something I never do or say. I don't even have this mind set most of the time. I get so wrapped up in the kids and the house stuff and my job that I just don't take the time to think about blessing my husband... this is something I want to work on in the coming weeks. 

I've always said I wanted my girls to see what marriage should be from us. We struggle everyday and its even taken us four years to get to a place where we feel that we're even half way where we should be. But we're trying...

Something else that stood out to me:

" Marriage provides us the opportunity to experience the transforming power of the gospel."

Just like in the Bible, there are rises, falls and redemption in marriage. I'd never heard that parallel before but it totally made sense. 

I'm very excited about the next three sermons in the series. There are lots of things I need to be working on and praying over. But we are trying...

Miracle Baby

Miracle Baby: Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

I saw this on Fox 8 last night. It broke my heart. It gave me hope. It reaffirmed my faith in my God and what he can do. 

First I want to say if you watch this, you will cry. Just letting you know ahead of time. Second, I want to say how much I admire this little girl's parents. Mama just said to me the other day "God gives special babies to special people."  I totally believe that.  Through this terrible, devastating time in their lives, they continue to hold fast to the fact that God's will is being done, regardless of what it is at the time. 

I want to be more like this. I will not complain. I will go home and love on my healthy babies. Thank You Lord for my children.

I didn't post this to make you sad or to scare you-especially any expectant mothers or mother's of little ones. I posted this so that we could keep Baby Noel in our prayers. This child and her family need prayers right now. She needs to be lifted up. I believe in the power of prayer! Please tell everyone you know, especially those prayer warriors in your life-Pray for Noel!! Life Up this sweet Baby-remember her...

Pray for her healing, pray for her strength, pray for her health, pray for her little lungs, pray for her growth and development. Pray for her parents and family. Stop right now and do it. 

Stop right now and Thank God for the children in your life.