ready or not...

....here it comes!

i am referring to the "c" word.
i know you guessed what it is
and it is probably on your mind too!

it's christmas

i love,love the christmas season! i just love everything about christmas. i love why we celebrate the season. i love the different traditions we have each year. and i love starting new traditions as the kids get older.

even though, i do wait until after thanksgiving to begin decorating and really preparing for the big holiday! i do begin thinking about it earlier than that. its on my mind, but i am not ready to do anything about it.

it is hard to believe it is that time already! we are almost at the end of november! so i can't put off christmas any longer! and that is ok, i am ready for it to come! i haven't gotten the christmas boxes down yet. but i will be working on cleaning and some decorating this week.

we start off our holiday tradition every year by getting our christmas tree. we get our tree the weekend after thanksgiving. this year, i have gone round and round on whether or not i wanted to get a tree and put it up and make it look beautifully perfect just to have my sweet busy baby pulling off all of the decorations. i thought of some different ideas that maybe we could do instead, but none of them felt right. so last minute, we decided we would get a tree and put it up next weekend. the bottom half may be a little bare, but i don't think it would feel like christmas without a tree!! did anyone else with a busy baby or toddler think twice on their decision?


even though the boxes have yet to be unpacked and the decorating has yet to be done. and i haven't even bought a gift. or put up the tree. i am not stressed. i am refusing to feel stress. and i don't want to see this season as a time for stress. i have been doing a lot of thinking about what i am going to truly celebrate this holiday season. and it doesn't have to do with buying lots of material things. it has nothing to do with spending money i don't have. it is going to have everything to do with how i live my life for the one who gave me life.

with that at the center of my mind this season, i can truly say...it is starting to feel a lot like christmas!

there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:

ecclesiastes 3:1

a new perspective on thankfulness...

"In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God."
Thessalonians 5:18

i have been overdue for a check up. and i am not talking about a medical kind of check up. but a check up on where my heart is. i admit, even though its hard, i have found myself in a not so good place. for some reason, despite the thanksgiving season, i have lost sight of what i am truly thankful for. it is really hard to write this. and to think of my blog post being out there with all of the other warm fuzzy posts filled with really sweet thanksgiving stuff. it makes me shudder. but i am going to be honest and share where my heart has been. i promise that this post is one that may start negative but does turn positive!

i have taken some time to be quiet and reflect this week. and with God's prompting, i gave myself a heart check. i found that so many things that i was struggling with, had taken over who i am. i lost sight of where my focus should be. i let my struggles become who i am. my focus has shifted onto myself. and i allowed it to happen. i allowed myself to think only about myself and how bad things seemed. i had become selfish and saw my struggles as so much bigger than what they really were. i was allowing them to determine my mood and who i was becoming. i was throwing myself one huge pity party. yuck!

just because things don't go my way or don't seem perfect in my sight, i shouldn't allow them to to dictate my mood or my feelings. they are struggles, they are not who i am. God gives us struggles in life so that we can overcome them and learn from them. He doesn't want them to overcome us. and that is what my struggles have been doing to me. they have overcome me. i have allowed them to take a stronghold over me. i have allowed them to take over and they have hidden my true joy and my grateful heart.

a lot of my struggles were with situations that i do not see as perfect or something i deserve. i had developed these self inflicted struggles. i allowed things that were imperfect to become a struggle. just because things didn't go the way i had planned, or the way i wanted, i saw them as a struggle. and instead of wrestling with the struggles, and overcoming them. i let them stay in my heart, making me feel defeated.

so, i began to look at the perspective i was taking with the things in my life...

my marriage.
my kids.
my friendships.
my church.
my finances.
my vehicle.
my home.

and i realized instead of being thankful for them, finding the good in what i do have, i looked at them and saw imperfection. and that is what became my struggle. i struggle with the need for things to be perfect. i was looking for perfection in all areas of my life. and it wasn't there. i began trying to fix all the things that were not perfect. and i realized there is not perfection in any one of those things. not one single thing i listed above is perfect.

what i did lose sight of is the one thing in my life who is perfect.


my God, my Lord, my Savior.

i lost perspective of Him. of who He is. i lost sight of all of things that i should be rejoicing in because of Him.

i lost perspective that He is in control of the good things and the not so good things in my life. i am not in control. He knows the plan He has for me and it will not harm me. somehow, i had forgotten that and took it upon myself to be in control.

so this thanksgiving season, with a newly repaired heart, i choose to be grateful to Him for everything in my life. God has given me so much and i am truly blessed.

"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever."

Psalm 107:1

happy happy thanksgiving...

from our family to yours!

(insert photo of us here!)



i hope that you have a wonderful thanksgiving day !
i hope you are able to rejoice in each and every thing that you are thankful for!

i have so many things to be thankful for!

1. my family & friends
2. the fact that i only had to make a few deserts and a casserole today
3. my mom is hosting thanksgiving dinner and i am not!
4. that my family is extremely healthy, i do not take this for granted.
5. that i live in the united states and for those who continue to fight for our freedom.
6. our church and church family
7. God's love that is never ending
8. a strong & healthy marriage
9. technology and how it makes life so easy
10. four great kids who teach me something new every single day!

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
Psalm 100:4

the days are just racing by...

...and i feel so left behind!

i have these moments of panic, where i feel like the days are just racing by and i just can not catch up. i have come to realize that in a home with four kids, there is always something to do, something to clean up or put away. that does overwhelm me a lot. but i try to keep it in perspective, i realize it will never get completely done. and just as soon as the clothes are all washed, dried and put away. four little people will take off their clothes just before their baths and then i have another load that needs to be done. i have become ok with that. kind of.

what i have a hard time with, is i have all of these big ideas of things i want to do with my kids or for myself and they just don't get done. the daily workings of our home take so much time that there is barely time for anything else. i have lists of projects that need completed around the house. i have lists of crafts i want to do with the kids. i have different ideas for discipline or collecting allowance that i want to implement. i have thought of so many fun things to do throughout the holiday season. and so on and so on.... but these lists just collect in my head or are left on my list not checked off. when will i ever have time to do them?

i admit that i love the sense of accomplishment and get frustrated when i can't get things done. i just need more hours in the day!

and i wish the days would just slow down so i could take a breath and catch up to their pace. they are going by way too fast. and i can't keep up. as hard as i try, i am still running to catch up.

almost wordless wednesday...

outside talking & playing...

inside watching & wishing...

i dont know what happened...

i got on my laptop so i could write a few posts and hopefully get one posted today and have a few others saved to post over the next few days. and then i got really sidetracked and had to reply to some emails, some facebook messages, update my twitter and facebook status and creatd an evite for my ladies small group. and than just as i jumped on blogger, wouldn't you know it, jaelyn woke up from her nap crying. and that kind of cry said to me, she will not be content to be in her crib, come get me now!

so i am off to get my sweet baby girl and hope to be back soon! naptimes just go so quickly!!

hope you are all having a fabulous tuesday!!

this man...

apparently, i am not the only one who is so thankful for this man!

our family is blessed beyond belief to have a
such an amazing spiritual leader!

this man is my rock
words can not begin to express who this man is to me!

and it kind of looks like
this man is their super hero,
don't ya think?


photography by the beautiful mess