Our new life..5.20.13

I had a fabulous Mother's Day!! Kaleb bought me a new sewing machine! See the photos below!

 My thoughts on our new life:

We are adjusting to our new life! 

I love having a big house! It is so much easier to keep clean! I am enjoying it

so much! 

I love having a pet bunny! 🐰Derp is living upstairs in his cage in his own room! It is wonderful!! Kaleb and I go up there and play with him daily! 

I love that Kaleb doesn't have a long drive to work!🚗

I love that Kaleb can come home for lunch somedays! 🏡

I love having more space for recycling organization! ♻

I love having a laundry room on the main level of the home instead of in the basement!! 

I miss my family being close! 

I miss our home church! 💒

But we will find a new church soon! ⛪Either we will be going to an Assembly of God  church or an Evangelical Free church. 

We will be visiting each church several times. And prayerfully 🙏make a decision. Whatever the Holy Spirit leads us to do! 

We have several exciting things to look forward to in the coming months! 

This week my sister is coming to visit! ✌And I am so excited about that! I miss having her around all the time! And she can hold Elijah while I unpack more stuff!! :) 

Then, Friday, my mom and sister are coming!! Hopefully we can get a lot done!! And get my house in order! And completely unpacked and decorated! 🎑

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I am bringing my friend Kristina to her indoor power hockey games this summer! once in June, July and August! She is a dear friend. I used to be her PCA. Elijah and I will be making the trip to her hockey games! And helping her attend them in her wheelchair ♿...I am so excited! 

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✈We are flying to 🌵Arizona, June 13! I am so excited and so is Kaleb!!! We haven't seen his family in one year!! And 👪 they haven't met Ebear yet!! Praying that Elijah does well on the plane in the seats! 💺

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💍Our 2 year anniversary 💎is June 25, 2013!! 💒🎉 and we are celebrating as a family of 3 this year!! 🚹🚺🚼

👪

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I am going to now the lawn this week! I live mowing the lawn! 

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The strings on our clothesline are broken so this week we are going to put up new ones! Yay! 

Laundry is my favorite chore! I love the smell of fresh air/wind dried clothing!! 👚👖👗👙👕

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Kaleb is buying a bike! We will all be biking together in no time! And for now we will pull Elijah in a pull behind cart and once he is more stable in his sitting up abilities, we will get a seat to attach to Kaleb's bike! 🚲

We will make this house our home...

Here are some photos. Will write some more later.

May has arrived!!

Well, this week we are packing and getting ready to move on Saturday. So it has made life quite interesting. Moving is annoying without children. And with a baby it is a lot harder. It's hard to know what to pack and what not to pack. I have a suitcase full of Elijah's clothes. And that has seemed to work pretty well. My mom has come driven the 20 minute drive to help me Thursday and today. And that has been nice. It has been such a blessing to be able to live here for the past year and spend time with my mom and my family.
But we both feel that this is the next step for our family and it is what the Lord is telling us to do. And it is what is best for our family, our pocketbook, and our future.
I am very grateful to Kaleb for commuting the one hour to work and 1 hr back home again each day for the last year. I was able to be near my family, especially my mom during my first pregnancy. And that was a wonderful joyous thing!
But this little house that we are living in now is much too small. We have outgrown it. Elijah loves his bouncy toy and it takes up a lot of space. And he really doesn't have much space to learn how to crawl in this house.

Moving will be hard because we will have to find a new church and started new different life down there but we are both very excited!
But I do not want to be afraid of hard things. I also want to stay as positive as I can. Because this is where we know we need to go.

I will be posting pictures and whatnot as we move into our house. And I am including a few previews the Elijah's three months/four-month photo shoot.

This week I also had to go to a funeral of a woman who was apart of our Tuesday morning Bible study. She took her own life. It was tragic. No one knew she was struggling or sad or anything. She smiled and loved life, or so we all thought. Even her husband and her two daughters had no idea she was in emotional pain.
This event once again left me sad.
and left me pondering life and thanking God for things.
Family,
Love.
The cross.
Jesus' sacrifice of unconditional love. God's love and forgiveness does not depend on my past or present wrongs. If I hold tight to Jesus, I am forgiven. There is NOTHING I do in this life that can get me in to Heaven or closer to Christ. He is near to the broken hearted and brings them peace.
I watched a movie yesterday called, "World Changers" it is on Netflix and it is good! I will end this entry with a quote from that movie.
It just hit home after this year. After losing my grandpa and then attending this funeral.
The pastor at the funeral said a good thing and I have been sharing it a lot!
1. No one knows everything.
2. No one has everything together.
3. We all depend on God's love, grace and mercy.

"This is how life goes. One minute it's bright and hopeful. And the next, something seemingly inexplicable happens. But God is there."

Thoughts from this mama

Since becoming a mom Many things have become apparent to me.
All the expert advice is annoying.
I feel like my instincts Are better than any advice that anyone could give me.
Mostly because I know my baby and my baby knows me. And the two of us seem to coexist very well together.
I am seeing that in America we think that if our baby is sleeping alone and putting themselves to sleep and in their own room by 6 to 8 months old that we have succeeded.
But as I have studied other cultures especially indigenous cultures and families it seems that they spend a lot more time together. Mom's only main job is to take care of the children and provide food. And they don't seem annoyed about that. They seem to enjoy it. The children appear very well-adjusted to their life and independent. Even though they all closely. Live together. And depend upon one another.
I'm starting to see what we have lost in our culture. As Christians. As mothers. Mothering appears to be A burden! And it doesn't seem like women are enjoying themselves while they are doing it.
I don't find myself annoyed with every dirty diaper or spit up or what have you. I feel joy inside of my heart knowing I am caring for another human being.
I don't worry if my son will sleep through the night or if he won't or if he is going to nurse every two hours or when was the last time he . I just go with his flow. One day he may eat every two hours on the dot. And that is fine. However, there are some days where He will eat Every three hours but then he wants to eat an hour later. It is constantly changing.
Either way it all seems to work out fine. I truly believe you cannot spoil an infant.
I also feel God telling me that as I don't worry about what is to come I am taking a burden off of my own shoulders. Worrying causes us to be stressed. Which will rub off on our children.
It is our duty as women to set the tone in our households.
I am really seeing that it is about what is best for baby. What his little body needs is the most important thing. And even though I could start him on cereal or some whole milk or some formula and it would sit in his stomach and keep him feeling full all night long and then I could get a full nights rest. But I would rather nurse my baby and have to feed him two or three times in the night because I know that is what is best for his digestive system and for his future. But I've also seen that I have been blessed with a baby who is calm and collected and enjoys sleeping. I do like to believe that is because I am being selfless and doing all I can for him.
I am doing what I know is right in Gods eyes. Thinking about his well being above ALL!
And even though I have to feed him 2-3 times each night, it isn't stressful and I am not tired at all. I am glad to do it!
I love him to pieces!
He is a great baby!
I know we have been blessed with a baby that doesn't cry very much!
But even if he was crying and upset, I would still sacrifice for him. And I wood still nurse him!

Happy Birthday, Kaleb!!

This is what I wrote on Facebook today! And thought I'd share it here!

Happy Birthday, Kaleb! Thank you for:
-Working hard so I can stay home with Elijah!
-Accepting me as I am, but pushing me to grow beyond myself
-Saying, "I love you" out loud and often because it never gets old
-Moving to MN 3 years ago
-Staying positive even in the winter
-Choosing the narrow path even when people ridicule you
-Fixing my car and changing the oil
-Holding Elijah in the foyer so I can worship and take notes in church
-Loving my sisters and brother as your own
-My iPhone 5
-Letting me sleep when I need it
-Being silly when life gets serious

The list could go on and on! But the bottom line is,
Thank you, for choosing me and loving me!
I love you! ♥