A True Blessing

I am feeling overwhelmingly blessed with our son!!  What a joy he is to my life!  I have often been told that three years of age can be a nightmare.  I am seeing the fruits of our labor every day and it just blesses my heart more than I can say.  Josiah is definitely not perfect...lets face it...NONE of us are!  Do we still discipline and train daily?  Of course...that is what parenting is!  We are called to raise our children for the Lord and I am so grateful that the Lord blessed us with him.  We have had times when we would go through stages that were tough, but we were consistent and disciplined with the way we felt the Lord was calling us to.  I can look back on the last few weeks of him being two and the first week of him being three and I remember feeling stressed and exhausted (physically, mentally and emotionally) with the constant discipline and teaching.  Well, I am glad to say it has paid off tremendously!  I am not stupid in thinking that we won't revisit things that we have corrected for in the past, but I am just thankful to the Lord for showing us each day that our hard work is paying off.  For example, today we went out to run some errands.  It was so much fun!  We spent over an hour in Hobby Lobby collecting items for our advent project!  It was awesome to walk each row and look at things I wanted to look at and have our sweet little boy walk beside me not touching anything!!  Then we went over to the mall to just walk around!  I think I can count on two hands how many times I have been to this mall in three years.  I am just not a shopper.  We went to Hallmark so that he could pick out an ornament for this year (which I got for $1.05! because of a reward certificate that I had and a $5.00 coupon...can't beat that for a Hallmark ornament).  He loved walking the mall, looking at things and staring at Santa from afar.  I gave him a dollar in quarters before we went into the mall and told him that if he obeyed that he could use that dollar to ride a machine when we were about to leave.  He was so excited about hearing those quarters (which he calls pennies) in his pocket!  But here is what melted my heart the most and almost brought tears to my eyes (I did tear up telling Josh the story tonight). I am in love with those sugared pecans (I have only had them 3 times in my life but they are so good).  There was a man selling them so I stopped and bought us a small bag.  That sweet man gave me an extra empty bag for Josiah so he could carry his own.  I put some of the pecans in his bag and we continued walking while snacking on our yummy pecans.  All of the sudden Josiah started folding the top of his bag down (with pecans still in it) and I said "buddy, are you all done or do you not like them?"  His response to me was "I saving these for Daddy.  I gonna share with him when he gets home."  OH MY WORD.  He thought of that all on his own.  He loves his Daddy and Josh has been at work late every night this week with Pathfinder school.  In fact, the other night Josiah said we couldn't eat dinner without him - that he wanted to wait until he got home...but we had to because I knew Josh would be late.  I just love Josiah's heart...We have prayed for him to be kind, loving, and that he would think about others before himself and I am seeing it more and more each day.  So, when we have difficult times with him testing his limits I will be reminded of these situations..I will be reminded that the Lord calls us to train our children and we will continue to follow His leading in parenting!!!!  Thank you, Lord for the gift you have given to us...a gift named Josiah Michael Sandler!

Proverbs 22:6
    "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it."

"Inconceivable"

Several months ago a dear friend of mine who lives in Alaska sent me a book titled "Inconceivable."  At the time I was reading a Karen Kingsbury book, so I just put it on the shelf for another time.  I would walk by it every now and then (while dusting the shelf) and just look at it.  Well, the time came two weeks ago when I finally took the book off the shelf to read it not knowing at all what a blessing this book would be to me.  As you probably know by now, Josh and I have had a difficult year (+) trying to conceive another child.  I have had two miscarriages and lots of tears along the way.  I had no idea it could or even would be this hard to conceive another child considering it was very easy once we decided we wanted to start trying for Josiah.  We were blessed to get pregnant very quickly with him and I loved every second of being pregnant!!

The book "Inconceivable" is about a family who had two children without any issues and those boys were 10 and 12 years old.  The tried for many years to have another child and ended up doing IVF for their third child, a baby girl.  When they went in to use more of the embryos they had frozen from the previous retrieval the doctors put the wrong embryos in her.  Six weeks later when they found out they were successfully pregnant they also found out that they were pregnant with someone else's baby!!  They had the decision to make about whether or not to continue with their pregnancy and they chose to!  Praise the Lord.  I am about half way through the book.  I have gotten to the part where they are now meeting the parents of the child she is carrying.  I cannot imagine this ever happening to me.  For one of our pregnancies I was only 6 weeks along when we lost it and for the second miscarriage I was 9 weeks along.  This may sound crazy, but I feel like I bounded with those babies, so to carry one full term, deliver it and hand it over to someone else would have broken my heart beyond words!  The lady in the book was crushed knowing that the doctors told her for her health she should never be pregnant again.  The last baby she would carry and birth wasn't even hers.  The husband and wife end up hiring a surrogate mother to carry her last embryos in hopes to get more children...children that they prayed for and dreamed of.

Well, the other day I wrote in my facebook status about this book and one of my newer friends here commented back that the family from the book would be on the Today show that morning!! WHAT?  Seriously?  I read that comment at about 7:15am and quickly ran upstairs to our TV and started recording the show (thank God for DVR).  While Josiah was napping I figured I would just fast forward some and see if I started recording it in time!  Ten minutes into my recording they showed up on my TV screen!  I couldn't believe it!!!  Not only was I reading the book, but now I could meet this family on TV!!  They were there with all of their children...including 3 month old TWIN girls that were brought into this world by the surrogate mother using their last embryos!  The Lord blessed them for their faithfulness! What a blessing!!!!

I truly believe that the LORD has had this occur in my life.  The fact that I started reading this book when I did and then have the family be on television and I actually got to watch it is NO COINCIDENCE...it is a DIVINE APPOINTMENT!!  I am SO grateful for this book, for my friend, Jackie, sending it to me and for the Lord using it as such an encouragement and blessing in my life.

Tree of Thankfulness

A couple of weeks ago Josiah and I took on a craft.  We did a little each day for three days.  The first day we printed out some leaves, I cut them (he tried to cut some..those got demolished, but at least he tried) and we colored them together.  That took about 2 of the days.  Then we talked about things we were thankful for.  We want to teach Josiah to be grateful for things that he has and a perfect time to teach it is during the Thanksgiving season.  He has also been extremely interested in the leaves around the neighborhood.  Each day that we walk he has noticed them changing colors and falling without me telling him anything.  He always asks me why and so I explain that we are changing seasons and leaves change colors and fall.  He is so interested in it and I am proud of him for his awareness of the things that go on around him.  He notices everything!  On day two of making this Tree of Thankfulness (that is what we decided the name would be), after coloring the rest of the leaves we went on a little hunt around the neighborhood to find the perfect "tree" (aka branch made to look like a tree).  We came home and finished our tree by punching holes in the leaves (Josiah loved doing this) and then we put strings on each leaf and hung it on our tree.  I finished it up by putting it into a glass vase with some red glass balls in the bottom to weigh it down.  This project was completely FREE and totally FUN!!  Josiah will now point to his tree and ask what does the "lellow (or another color) leaf say mommy?"  Here are some of the things that Josiah said he was thankful for:
          *God
          *Daddy
          *Mommy
          *Dakota and Sequoia
          *our car
          *Family (he started by naming them individually, but I talked him into just having one for everyone...we could quickly fill the tree with that one)
          *Food (and then he wanted two separate ones for Grapes and Apples - lol...I guess according to him those do not fall under the food category)
          *Toys
          *Church
          *Friends (and then he started naming his friends so we wrote those names on the one leaf)
          *Water
And many more.

I hope to do something like this each year with him.  It is important to teach your child gratefulness and this was a fun way to do it.  Enjoy the pictures that I took of him after we completed our craft.

Everything - Tim Hughes

God in my living
There in my breathing
God in my waking
God in my sleeping

God in my resting
There in my working
God in my thinking
God in my speaking

Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything

God in my hoping
There in my dreaming
God in my watching
God in my waiting

God in my laughing
There in my weeping
God in my hurting
God in my healing

Christ in me
Christ in me
Christ in me the hope of glory
You are everything

Christ in me
Christ in me
Christ in me the hope of glory
Be my everything

BE MY EVERYTHING...there is just something about this song that brings me to me knees probably more than any song I have heard.  For some reason, I cannot get it out of my head.  I planned on cleaning the bathrooms today while Josiah napped (I already chopped up the vegetables for dinner), but I felt the Lord/Holy Spirit wanting me to hear the song again.  Josh would probably actually be impressed that I was able to google it and put the link on my blog without any help!  

The first time I heard this song (the lyrics are above and I encourage you to read them) was in our church in Columbia.  I remember liking it and enjoyed hearing and singing it.  Yesterday we sang it again and for some reason I had tears in my eyes as the Holy Spirit was just tugging at my heart.  Isn't it amazing how we can hear a song at one point in our lives and it doesn't mean much, but in another time/year of our lives mean so much?  We have been talking about the Holy Spirit in church and with our small group and I know for a fact it was the Holy Spirit telling me and teaching me something.  I want the Lord to be MY EVERYTHING...right down to the little things about my day.  I want to have a heart for the Lord in everything I do (including things that seem silly for Him to be apart of - He wants to be apart of those things) every single day.  I want HIM to be apart of my hopes, my dreams,  the things I laugh about, cry about...just everything!  As I wait for the Lord to show me things about my life, my future, my child and future children...I want Him to be my everything.  I want Him to continue to show me how to be a wife and a mother!  I have the best two people to be a wife and mother to!  He knows what is best for everyone.  He knows you better than you know yourself.  He knows your strengths, your weaknesses and your desires.  I pray that I will include God in my "everything."  

Confession

I know by the title of this blog you may think it is something serious...it isn't...just being silly.  Recently Josh and I have been really sticking to our budget and for the first time in our 8 year marriage we are taking a set amount of money out twice a month for just each of us to spend on whatever we may want.  We each get $25 a paycheck (so $50 a month) to buy something for ourselves.  That means if we want to go out to lunch with a friend, buy Starbucks (I get hot chocolate from there...Josh gets coffee), buy a book, music, clothes...whatever we want to buy for us.  I know Josh started this because I have a HARD time buying stuff for myself.  I never want to spend money on me.  Last paycheck with some of the money I bought a long shirt from Target that I have had my eye on for a while...it was originally $19.99, but I got it for $4.98!!!  (I never pay full price for anything).  I used the rest of it to go to Chick-Fil-A with a friend and bought myself a hot chocolate from Starbucks.  I don't know why it is so hard for me to spend money on myself, but I am grateful to Josh for starting this for us.  When we talked about "our personal cash" last pay period, we both admitted that it is so much harder to spend cash then it is to just swipe our debit card.  Now at the start of a pay period we take out the allotted amount of cash for haircuts, our spending money and entertainment (eating out/movies (which we rarely ever see a movie n the theater...way too expensive/ice cream).  It is really a good habit to get into!!  When the cash is gone...it's gone!

So, that brings me to my CONFESSION.  For a few months now I have been really getting tired
 of carrying one of my many Vera Bradley bags.  If you know me, you know that I have a lot of them collected over 8 years...mostly gifts for Birthdays or Christmas.  I have been a committed Vera Bradley customer - even went to the Vera Bradley outlet sale in Indiana last year with my friend, Lauren, who lives there.  That was a really fun experience.  Never saw so many Vera Bradley bags in one place...being sold and the people there that were carrying one!  It was nuts.  The line to get into the sale was insanely long and filled with women who were carrying their favorite purse.  I have Vera Bradley's purchased from all different states...my first one came from NY when the doctor's office I worked at gave me one as a going away gift.  I also have bags that were purchased in South Carolina, Georgia, Alaska and Tennessee.  Craziness.  Over the past few months I have been looking when I go out at different places (I am not a shopper, so I don't go out much).  The other night we went to JC Penney after an early dinner to get Josiah some warm pj's and I looked while we were there.  I think I was cracking Josh up because I kept telling him all of my purse rules before I buy one.  The purse has to have two straps just long enough for the bag to fit right under my arm (I hate long straps), has to have a zipper to close, must have several pockets for organization and must be able to stand up on its own.  I hate bags that just fall over when you put them down and then all of your stuff moves all around.  Yesterday, I wanted to take a look at Kohl's.  Josiah and I went out early in the morning for a quick check since I had been looking online and had a 15% off coupon.  I found a purse!!!  It is a Nine & Co. bag that was originally $50 that I walked away paying $25.03 for - my exact spending money for this pay period!  I am so excited.  It fits all of my rules.  I put all of my stuff in it to make sure I liked it, left the tag on it and carried it around the house a little yesterday just to make sure!  Josh and I meet for lunch after Josiah's gymnastics on Tuesday's so when he saw me carrying the purse he immediately said that I must like it since I cut the tags off.  Not many husbands would notice their wife's purse!  It is the little things in life that make me happy!  I am a bag lover - always have been.  So, I am sorry Vera Bradley...I am not done carrying your bag, but I just need a break from the patterns and enjoy my plain black purse!