Peace...

I just love this boy.

PEACE!

getting help...

My sweet two year old really knows how to put things away in an organized fashion. ;) But at least he is learning to help, right?

Elmo cupcakes!

We celebrated Ian's 2 year birthday on Saturday the 18th! It went great. We had a blast and Ian was super tired and went to bed early. ;)

I made Elmo cupcakes. They were so fun to make and really once I got started they didn't take long at all. I did sort of an assembly line...icing, sprinkles, eyes, nose mouth, icing, sprinkles, eyes, nose, mouth. Once I got that down I really started popping them out!

I made chocolate cupcakes (boxed mix) and added dark chocolate chips to the mix. Yummy! Then I made a white chocolate butter cream frosting. This was easy to make, but because of the white chocolate it made it hard to work with. Also, I used candy melts instead, to get the red color, so that probably didn't help with that problem. If I make this again I will probably use another recipe or actual white chocolate. The eyes are marshmallows cut in to thirds (I tried doing 1/2 a marshmallow but it looked too big so I did the thirds and that seemed to work out good), the pupil is a chocolate covered marshmallow (you can buy these at the store!) cut in half. The nose is a pretzel M&M and the mouth is 1/2 an Oreo (I figured out that instead of just cutting them in half you really need to do more of a sawing action with a butter knife otherwise you will have pieces of oreo all over the place and won't be happy with the mouth). Oh and I also used red sprinkles to get the fur effect. Over all I think these turned out well!

Dear Mr. President...

Pictured is a young physician by the name of Dr. Roger Starner Jones. His short two-paragraph letter to the White House accurately puts the blame on a "Culture Crisis" instead of a "Health Care Crisis"..

It's worth a quick read:


Dear Mr. President:
During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ring tone.


While glancing over her patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as "Medicaid"! During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one pack of cigarettes every day, eats only at fast-food take-outs, and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer. And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman's health care? I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. Rather, it is the result of a "crisis of culture" a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. It is a culture based in the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me". Once you fix this "culture crisis" that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at how quickly our nation's health care difficulties will disappear.

Respectfully,
ROGER STARNER JONES, MD
If you agree...pass it on.

Claiming victory...

Isn't it crazy how you can start a day out with a beautiful, powerful, go get em' attitude and then by the afternoon have an ugly, defeatist attitude? That is how my day was today. I woke up with an amazing attitude. I was able to spend time in prayer and read my book that our FLOCK ladies are reading. I cleaned the kitchen and washed bottles all before 8:30! Then by the time 1:30 came around I was beat. Satan really started to get to me with my thoughts. I cried a lot this afternoon. I know part of it is because I was REALLY tired and didn't feel good. But I know that is just the foot in the door that Satan looks for. He sees that as an opportunity to get us down so we are not as useful in furthering the Kingdom of God.

No more my friends. Tonight I decided to claim victory over this. We know that in Christ we already have won the battle. I will no longer feel overwhelmed. I am going to make a schedule to help with that. I can't do to much about the tiredness, but will do my best to recognize the symptoms that go along with it so I can warn the people I am around. :)

Thank you Lord for giving me victory over these things in my life!

A moment to remember...

Wow, I don't even know where to start. The last few weeks have been such a crazy whirl wind of emotions for me. Let me just start by saying I couldn't have made it through with out the support of my fabulous husband and friend Misti. They are truly a God send.

Ok, so here we go...

When Owen was born I held him a lot, skin to skin. I am not sure if that is what formed the bond that he has with me or not, but I think it might be part of it. As I mentioned in the previous post we have had major issues with him crying and only settling down when I pick him up. This has made for a very hard time for me. (and my husband, but since this is my blog I will only talk about me for now) I had this little baby who wanted me so much but to be honest I just wanted some sleep. I didn't feel as though I loved this child. I was really only doing the necessary things to take care of him, feeding and changing him. Of course I held him because that seemed to be the only thing to get him to not cry. But honestly I wasn't enjoying it. I read a blog where the lady said for the first four months she felt like that. That helped me get through it. I also had many other people tell me the same thing.

I felt like I was the worst mom for not feeling love for this child I carried for 9 months. Which of course made it harder to get through the day. I kept being reassured by friends and family that it would change. I would have a day here and there where I felt like things were changing, but then it would go back to the way it was.

Until...

Friday afternoon. I was getting ready for a date with my husband when Owen woke up. I held him for awhile until Ian woke up too. At first Ian was crying and wouldn't come out of his room so I put Owen down and picked up Ian. Well when I got back to the living room Ian was sitting on my lap and we were watching videos of Tim Hawkins (funny guy) when Owen started crying. I knew that I didn't want to put Ian down so I just picked up Owen too. It was at that moment that the doors to my heart just opened up and were filled with love! I started crying because both my boys had stopped crying when I picked them up. They were both just laying there head on my shoulders. I felt so blessed and just couldn't believe what an awesome moment God had provided me with! I can honestly say that I love BOTH of my boys right now. It is so amazing how one moment can change your perspective on things.

Now I am picking up Owen and kissing him and loving him with meaning! During our date on Friday, I text messaged our friend who was watching them, to check on how they were doing. She said Owen has having a hard time. My mommy heart leapt into gear and we were on our way to get him. I remember having this feeling with Ian and I was so very happy to have it with Owen!

I hope that this encourages those of you who might be going (or soon to be going) through this. More than anything I hope you don't go through the struggle of loving your child. But if you do, know that you are not alone.

Here are the two blogs that really encouraged me during this time of struggle:
The finer things in life be sure to read the comments on this post as people give great advice.
Blissfully Domestic, this was really encouraging.

Dear Lord- our time as moms is a weird vortex where days last forever and years fly by, help us to do all we can and be present in the lives of our boys.. because someday we’ll awake to the fact that they are men… and we’ll be proud. I love you lord and thank you for my boys.. and for them becoming men, in your time. Amen (taken from The MOB Society)

so long...

It has been a while since I have posted anything because it is hard to type what I want to with one hand. I am holding our little 8 week old baby boy A LOT lately. He seems to be slightly attached to me, which is a bit stressful for both me and the hubs. But I have the most wonderful husband in the world and he tries for a long time before asking me for help in the early morning hours. I don't know what is more frustrating to him, staying up for 2 hours with a crying baby or the fact that when I get up with him he seems to calm down with in about 10 minutes.

Needless to say this has been a tough 8 weeks, but we are making it through and will be better for it I suppose or at least I hope so. ;)

I want to type more, but need to take advantage of Owen sleeping by going to bed myself!