Christmas at our House

I honestly can't believe that Christmas is just two short days away!!  We are super excited that my parents (aka Grammie and Poppy) are here (arrived at 2am this morning and got up with smiling faces to see their only grandchild....and Josiah was very happy to see them!).  I have been baking like crazy.  Not really sure why, except the fact that I love to bake and share goodies with friends and family.  This week I have made mint chocolate chip cookies, snicker doodles, mint crisps, Christmas sugar cookies, brownies and white chocolate snack mix.  I currently have a peppermint pound cake in the oven and will make an apple pie later.  Then I will be done.  I delivered some treats to neighbors and friends yesterday and today.  It is fun for me to share sweets with others!!

Since the Christmas season started our family of three has enjoyed some fun memories.  We have driven around to see Christmas lights (which we plan to do again with my parents tonight), gone downtown to walk the River Lights, went to the drive thru Nativity, watched Christmas movies, made Advent crafts, listened to LOTS of Christmas music and done a little shopping.  I will have to say that Christmas this year is even more fun.  Josiah knows more about it and I love seeing his face light up at the different things he experiences.  He still isn't completely a fan of Santa and will only wave from a distance.  We aren't pushing it because I don't want to scare our child to death and let's face it Christmas is definitely not all about Santa.  Every morning Josiah asks for me to put music on after breakfast and he knows exactly what song he wants to hear.  His favorite Christmas song is Jessica Simpson's version of "Let It Snow."  The minute it comes on he starts dancing!!  It is cute.  For me, at Christmas I love to give people baked goods.  It is something about the time and energy I put into making some special treats to share.  Josiah has really enjoyed baking with me this year as well!  He is really at a fun age!  I've said before that I am not a huge shopper.  We didn't buy much this year (as I am sure a lot of people are in the same boat).  With our impending move and the disaster we have on our patio that still needs to be fixed, we tried to keep things simple.  We will see how simple my sweet husband kept things since his love language is gift giving.  I love that he loves to give to others and sometimes I wish I had the same love language.  My love language is quality time and acts of service.  I love doing things for people to help them and I enjoy just spending time with others.  I am so grateful that Josh and I know each other's love languages!!  Yesterday and today I have started to feel bad that I may not have gotten him enough for Christmas or even gotten him the "perfect" gift.  I made him his favorite cookies :)  It is too late now, because I am not going out today to get anything else.  I am more of a worrier about the bank account than he is and don't want to over spend on Christmas gifts.  I feel like that can be super easy to do once you start seeing other things that you would want to get someone.  I have always kind of felt like I am not a very good gift giver...wish I was better, but glad I married someone who is.  We definitely balance each other out!!!!  He finds great gifts and then we talk about whether or not we should spend the money on them.  This year with him in Pathfinder School I ended up having to do most of the shopping on my own...so the few things we bought I hope people like them!!!  Josiah's Santa gifts are an Easel (which I am super excited about because I know he will love it...he has recently really started enjoying coloring and painting so I know it will be fun for him).  Maybe it is my inner teacher, but I am hoping we will have short "school" sessions at home with it!  We also got him the Mickey Mouse Drum he has been wanting.  He saw it one day in Walgreens and that is all he talks about when people ask him what he wants from Santa...luckily it was only $9.99 and the day I went they were buy one toy get one free so I picked out a blue (his favorite color) car for him as well.  My parents got him (from Santa) a tool set and a big dump truck which he will absolutely LOVE!!  I guess maybe I feel like I never want to spoil him too much on Christmas and have him not be appreciative of what he receives..and also forget what Christmas is truly about.  The BIRTH OF JESUS CHRIST!!

Anyway, with that said our family is ready for Christmas.  No more shopping - just enjoying our time together!  I refuse to go out to the stores with the crazy shoppers!  We are just enjoying our time at home...tonight we are having Chicken Taco Soup, tomorrow (Christmas Eve) I am making Ham with all of the sides before we go to church for our Christmas Eve service and then dessert afterward (Peppermint Cake, Apple Pie and all of the cookies).  On Christmas day, I stick with Josh's family tradition and make Italian. We will have salad, chicken parm, spaghetti, asparagus, green beans and bread.  Just writing this makes me feel full.  I just that is what the season is...eating yummy food!!!

I am beyond grateful to have my husband home again this year for Christmas - that to me is the best gift!!  There are so many soldiers away from their families this year, so please keep the soldiers and family members left at home in your prayers!!!  We hope and pray that everyone has a wonderful Christmas!!!  We sure wish we could be with everyone in our family, but knowing that is impossible, we will just send our love to you all!!!!  Merry Christmas!!!!!!!

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!

Josiah brings us JOY

I have been thinking about wanting to do this post since Josiah turned THREE!  I want to remember all of the things he is doing right now and share with you the funny, cute things he does every day.  This way if you don't know him, or want to get to know him better you can by reading this list of cute things (at least I think they are cute) that he does.  Things that I will miss him doing once he "outgrows" them.  Bear with me, it may be a long list....


*Josiah has always been a really good talker.  He started talking at a young age, but he still has some cute things he says "incorrectly" and I love it.
    He will ask us "May I have some WATERN?"  Watern = water!
    I know most kids say this but instead of saying Don't he will say something like "I not yike (Like) that."  I love that he doesn't say "I don't." and he says "I not" instead!

*It melts my heart into mush when he hugs me around the neck and says "I yove (love) you so much, Mommy!"  Or "You are my favorite."

*I love it when he says "Mommy, ask me nicely for...(whatever toy he wants me to have to play with).  This is a newer thing that he has started and I think it is so cute.

*Sometimes when he is being silly he will pretend to wipe my kiss away and he thinks it is hilarious!  He cracks up.

*He loves to say "I do it all by myself, Mommy."  (I am pretty sure he gets that from my independence),

*He ALWAYS knows where we are going even when I don't tell him.  He has insanely good sense of direction and can tell me where to drive to get there.  He will say "turn here mommy to get to_______."

*Josiah LOVES LOVES LOVES his daddy!!!  He wants to do everything that Josh does and can't wait for him to come home.  If Josh has to work late and he doesn't get to see him, his first question to me the next morning is "where my daddy is?"  Or if I am talking to Josh on the phone Josiah has to say something to him.  He will say "Hi Daddy.  I obeying Mommy today.  I yove you!"
       
*He always wants to play with his friends and wants people to come over everyday or asks to go to someone's house.

*Recently he has gotten a really great imagination. He pretends things all day long.  He loves dinosaurs, matchbox cars and Mickey Mouse!  I enjoyed watching him play and playing along with him. 

 *He has really gotten good at puzzle and completed a jigsaw puzzle completely on his own today (of course it was a t-rex dinosaur.)

*At least 4 times a week he will ask either Josh or me (or both) "Mommy/Daddy can we go to the I-Cream place (which is ice cream)?"  Our favorite place to go here is Sweet Berry Frozen Yogurt and it is so good and very cheap!  We are able to go about once every 10 or so days.  The employees know Josiah...and Josiah gets the same thing every time.  Vanilla I-Cream with blueberries, 3 gummy bears, cookie bears (which are Teddy grahams..that is what he calls them), marshmallows and rainbow sprinkles.  WE LOVE SWEET BERRY!!!

*He still LOVES his blankie and will always love it.  A friend of mine gave me one that is the exact blankie, but he totally knows the difference and won't take the other one.  The only time he will use the other one is if I am washing HIS and he will say "Ok, I take the other one, Mommy."  He will never sleep a night with it though.  I always wash his during the day.

*He goes to bed with a "friend" (AKA Mickey Mouse), but never usually ends up keeping him in there.  If Josiah gets up once he looses his friend.  For some reason, he very rarely stays in his bed the first time.  It is like he needs one more kiss or something, so we take Mickey.

*Josiah is VERY good at sports and his favorite one this week is football.  He can catch and throw a football great for his age.  He also loves baseball...he can even hit a pitched baseball.  He then has to throw the bat down and "run the bases."  We love that he is so into sports.

*He now enjoys his bike with training wheels and just last week rode a mile on it
.
*As I am sure every parent has this with their kids, Josiah tends to test the limits lately.  He will say or do something that he knows is not ok with us and look at me with his big brown eyes as to say "what are you going to do?"  Of course we take care of it and move on to the next thing.  I wonder when he will stop testing the limits...ha ha - probably never!!  There will always be a new adventure and stage we have to push/discipline through.

*Josiah loves to help and recently has started pulling his step stool out from beside the refrigerator to help me do whatever it is I am doing.  I love it, but some times I would rather get it done faster...however, I know there will be a day when he won't want to help me anymore or will be busy playing with friends or in school and won't be able to help so I let him do it as much as he wants. 

*We started giving Josiah showers about 3 months ago when he started getting a rash on his bottom.  We weren't sure what was causing it, but soon determined that he has a sensitivity/allergy to the bathrooms wipes and it is now gone.  But, now he is set on taking a shower and if we say something about it being "bath time" he quickly corrects us and says "it is shower time, Mommy."  I guess bath time is in the past!! 

*While Josiah was a baby we never had to deal with him being a climber or being rough.  He still isn't a climber and doesn't test his limits by climbing on things.  He just doesn't like heights, I guess.  But...HE IS ALL BOY!!!  He LOVES to play ROUGH!!!  I don't mind him playing rough, but I am trying to learn a good way to teach him there is a time and place to be rough.  He can't wait for Daddy to come home everyday and before Josh even walks into the door he asks him if they can wrestle.  I don't want to take away his want/need for being a rough/tough kid, but I want him to be able to know when it is right and wrong.  I honestly didn't think he would be like that when he was younger because he was so timid and gentle.  Things have changed for sure and he keeps me on my toes all day long!!

*Josiah loves the computer and I am shocked at how well he knows how to use it.  He will ask me if he can look at pictures or videos of us on there and he knows how to work it.  When we go to the library he helps me with the computer there - using the arrows to look for books that he wants to check out!  Kind of crazy that I didn't even know how to use a computer until I was in high school and they have definitely changed since then for sure!!

*I am very grateful that Josiah eats and sleeps well!!  We never have to argue with him over eating healthy or taking a nap!  I will always feel blessed with that!!  He usually always asks during lunch if it is nap time and always goes right down and straight to sleep.  We had a short time where it was difficult at night making him stay in his bed, but we seemed to have conquered that (I hope)!  He only wakes up in the middle of the night if he has to go potty, but that only happens on the occasion he drinks to much at dinner or something and when he gets up he always goes right back to bed!

*In the last few months, he learned his very first Bible verse Philippians 4:13.  We are so proud of him!! 

*He knows how to spell his name out loud and I am slowly working on teaching him how to write it.  That may take a little while! 

*Josiah LOVES music and used to call it "mumic."  He says it correctly now, which makes us sad - ha ha.  He is constantly either playing his toy guitar or singing into his microphone.  He gets his love for music from his Daddy.  If it were up to the two of them there would be music playing in our house 24/7.  I have to have some quiet sometimes. 

I could go on and on about Josiah!  I just wanted to blog about some of the things so that I can remember them as time passes.  It feels like he is growing up SO fast and I don't want to miss a thing!!!