My stinky boys...boring post for most eyes :)

Ok, so I realized I have not done a blog posting updating on the boys and what they are doing, so for the sake of my memories, here goes!  For most eyes, other than grandparents or family....you may want to skip this post :)

Parkerman:

He is almost 5 years old and an absolute JOY to have around.  He is so compassionate and is such an amazing "daddy" to all of his stuffed animals.  He will feed them, make sure they get naps and snuggle with them, not wanting to hurt their feelings.  I absolutely adore that part of my little man.  On the flip side he is exactly that...a little MAN.  He loves to burp and fart and rough house and try and pee on you...he loves to shoot his toy guns and go hunting with daddy.  He loves to run and play soccer, though organized soccer wasn't quite his strong suit this year.  I think he needs to grow up just a little bit and learn that it really is ok for someone on your team to have the ball instead of you.  ;). ---He still LOVES to be with his family, he would rather be no where else.  I work out at the YMCA and my precious boy willingly with a happy heart goes to the childcare area...but makes it very clear he would rather be at home.

-The Lord brought another Christian momma into my life who has kids Parker and Beckhams age, we do preschool homeschool 3 days a week and Parker has finally...at 4.5 gotten interested in school stuff.  I thought it would never happen!  However, the curriculum we use is so amazing and the majority of it is "learn through play" kind of stuff.  The kids also ADORE each other.

-Parker wants to please so badly, and loves affirmation.  Well, he got lucky, because my sprititual gift is encouragement, and I love nothing more than to encourage my babies.

-He is still in speech therapy, but slowly starting to make improvements.  We are still working on the "k" sound and the "f" sound when he talks.
-The other day, Parker came in and told me that he had a dream that "all of these womens were kissing him"...after I died laughing, I told him the only womens who needed to be kissing him was MOMMY!  So the next morning, he came in and told me that he dreamed he married me :). MUCH better!!

-He loves to make people laugh and definitely has learned the art of playing jokes on people.  He loves to play hide and seek, duck duck goose, and LOVES to dress up in super hero outfits.  He also loves to drive his powerwheels, ride his bike and drive remote controlled cars.

-He so desperately wants to have a relationship with God, and wants to go to heaven and see Great Grandpa  when he dies, and on November 24, 2013, I heard him quietly praying in the back seat of the car asking Jesus to save him, after he and I had a long discussion about Jesus and salvation. I loved that so much.  I love teaching him about The Lord, and pouring my passion for Him into my children.  I pray that Parker and Beckham would hunger and thirst for righteousness and would live a life bearing fruit to their faith.

I love my sweet Parkerman more than words could describe and I love not only being his mommy, but also having no friendship with him too.  This is a whole new world.  I love learning to love what he loves and playing with him.  

Beckham:

Oh my little Beckham.  I love this firecracker of a child with my whole heart.  Beckham...how can someone who you love so intensely, push all of your buttons with equal intensity?  Hahaha!  Beckham is either super happy or super crabby!!!!  Ha!  This child has no in between (which apparently his mother has those qualities :)).  Everytime he laughs a lot he gets the hiccups.  He is fully potty trained, even at night time.  

He still has a hard time with speech articulation and is about to start speech therapy with Parker.  I understand him the majority of time, but most people have a hard time.

He still loves his "b-b", which is his blanket.  He is now having "I'm scared of the dark" moments at night, and will find himself sleeping on the floor next to my bed at night.

He still LOVES to snuggle with me...and still loves to be rocked at night.  

He too is a pleaser and always wants people to be happy.  If Parker looks sad, he will give Parker whatever he wants to make him happy.  It's so incredibly sweet.  His favorite answer to every question...no matter what the question is, is "poo-poo".  

I love this child so so much, and love being his mommy...though he can drive me crazy sometime :) :).

This holiday season...

This holiday season has been so different for me...good and bad.  The new feeling of homesick hit me on the way home from our time with family over thanksgiving.  I realized that my heart ached for my "old life" in a way that I haven't experience up here yet.  My heart ached for our family times, for our church home, for our friends and even for our old home...the home that I began doing grown up life in with my little family.  I fully expected this to come at some point, but hadn't experienced it yet since coming up here.  I guess the realization has finally hit that this is it...our life has changed....permanently.  As we were driving back up here from a family visit at the ranch, I told Blake....I feel like we are just gone on vacation and that it's time to drive back to our old house...it's time to go home...yet I can't go home...it's not mine anymore.  It made my heart ache so deeply.  The tears have come and gone, the struggle I think will be here for a while before it subsides.  

So this holiday season we came back and I got all of the decorations out for Christmas.  Well, let's just say I was so pleased with how it all turned out.  I loved it.  So then I immediately began plans for our "normals" during the Christmas season.  Lots and lots of Christmas music, looking at lights every night in our PJs and lots of Christmas movie watching...along with our "adornments" at dinner time where we go through the names of Jesus.  Well, let's just say....Parker learned the meaning of "baa humbug house" really quickly!  Hahaha!  Oh my...these people out here do NOT appreciate the art of Christmas lights like they do back in good ole Atascocita, Tx!!  So, we desperately went out night after night looking for something that resembled a Christmas spirited neighborhood, and night after night came home disappointed.  I tell you what...that was a hard thing for me...our blissful tradition of looking at lights was somewhat crushed this year!  Well, Lord?  Are you teaching me that Christmas is more that Christmas lights and traditions???  Hmmm...maybe, just maybe, my joy was wrapped up in the wrong stuff?  I think that's what God has truly been working on me out here.  That the joy of the LORD is my strength...not the joy of traditions, and the joy of external things.  By the way...have I mentioned how faithful and good God is???  I love Him so much...I absolutely love being in the lonely, deep waters with HIM...that's the only way I can stay afloat!  Anyways, I have been seeing God work on my weaknesses of feeling anxious in this new life of mine.  Anxiety rivets from looking at my circumstances and feeling somewhat alone.  Blake is here, and has had amazingly awesome family time with us, but still...he is working full time and going to school full time.  I do life a lot with my precious boys, by myself.  That's a new, kind of scary feeling.  But then that gentle voice inside of me.  Oh that beautifully wonderful gentle voice, says..."but I'm here...you aren't alone".  I hear Him comfort me with His word,that He will give me wisdom without reproach, and He will help me know what to do and how to handle certain situations.  This is a new world He has gently...and I mean GENTLY placed me in.  Though my little predictable, perfect world has been completely and drastically changed, I can truly see my heavenly Fathers GENTLE hand in all of it.  He is REFINING me in ways that I have always wanted to be refined.  He is making me into the woman I need to be, and it had to be through something like this for me to be left so crazy vulnerable.  Though my heart still aches a little everyday right now, I have such a peace...I know I am in the fire right now...but I know it will not destroy me and I know that I will come out of the fire better.  Praise be to God, I love you Lord...I love you with my innermost being and trust that my pain had to pass through your hands first before it hit my life.

Ok, so with all of that said.  Tonight, we got the opportunity to go to a Christmas hayride at a church down the street.  I had given up my "traditions" to The Lord...I had let the part die this year, as sad as it was...then The Lord gave me and the boys this...the pictures hardly did it justice, but it was amazing.  At one point we pull up to a barn setting where there are people singing Christmas carols...I seriously almost started to cry...I felt my insides drink the sight of Christmas spirit in like a dry sponge and I really did want to just burst into joyful tears of gratitude to The Lord for such a special night.  We went through tunnels of Christms lights, movies clips of the Christmas story, live carollers, and then ended the night with hot chocolate, Christmas cookies and popcorn.  My heart overflowed!!  

 

 

 
 
 
 
 

What about him?

We live in a world today where if you are a mother of young children your worth is based on how "good of a mommy" you are.  We have Facebook, blogs and Pinterest all to broadcast our awesomeness to the world.  You read on Facebook how we love and cherish our children and how we did this and that really cool activity or outing...leaving the rest of the moms wondering if their day was productive enough with their children to let them rest in the assurance they are a good mommy.  Lately, God has been gently nudging my heart about a simple statement "what about him?".  "What about Blake".  If you read my blog, 95% of it is dedicated to my children and me cherishing every moment...but what about my marriage?  Do I invest the same energy, prayer, thought and WORK into my marriage that I do for my kids?  Sadly, I must say no.  

This past weekend I went to a womens conference called the Art of Homemakeing.  It was excellent.  I went to a breakout session that was talking about how to bring joy to your husband without losing yours.  Ya know, I new I needed work in the marriage department, but I didn't want to go in and here the same ole things...meet his physical needs, cook for him and brush your hair before he comes home from work.  I almost skipped this session, but I decided to go and I'm really glad I did.  The speaker reminded us that though my above points are needed, they aren't what will sustain the joy in your marriage.  You and Jesus are what will sustain your marriage.  Spending beautiful time with your savior every day is what will fill your heart and your mind with power.  I also was talking with a friend about praying for your husband when I realized I was praying for Blake the wrong way.  I need to pray biblical traits over him, but I also need to pray that God would change ME!  I am the problem here.  I am full of selfish ambition and I hate it!  I realized anything nice thing I did for Blake had motives ....hoping that he too would do something nice for me.  Wow.  I never really saw that.  Selfish ambition can destroy.  Get it out of your mind, hearts and lives.  The speaker reminded me that it's NOT ABOUT ME.  If we have that mindset in our marriage...wow...how awesome.  Once you remove that "it's not about you", then nothing will bother you!  He leaves dishes in the sink?  Whatever, it's not about me!  He loses the desire to surprise you with flowers??  Whatever, it's not about me!  It's about my savior, and I'm serving him by serving my husband!  It's time ladies...we must invest in our husbands the way we invest in our children.  Trust me, this is super hard transition for my mindset as well.  I need to be his cheerleader and I need to make a haven for him to come home to instead of it being about me when he comes home.  Ugh!  I hate selfish ambition...there is nothing good about it and that's why Paul tells us to do nothing from it!!

Invest in your husband by investing in your Lord.  You want joy in your marriage?  You want peace?  Quit looking to your husband for it.  You will get all of the above, when you go to your Savior every day, allowing him to fill you with all of that.  When you relieve your husband of the job of pleasing you and appeasing you, you will find that your marriage is different.  You will have more joy, and you will live in the peace of your expectations being in The Lord.  

Update...

Well, here we are, it's been 10 and a half weeks since we moved up here.  It really has been so amazing to see God work in our lives.  

One big answer to prayer was in the homeschool department of my life.  I knew I had felt called to homeschool, yet how on earth was I going to do it??  I was SO unequipped!!  Let me count the ways!!!  1. I am sooo not routine, how could I keep up with a schedule?  2. I am lazy, I don't want to do lesson plans or encourage my kids to do their school 3. What curriculum??  I have no idea how to do this?  4.  Totally average intelligence on my part...feeling inadequate there 5. 6. 7. 8....goes the list.  Well, The Lord reminded me that it was HE that was going to do the work, not me, so just follow His plan.  

1. My former childrens minister told me about a fantastic curriculum, so I bought it

2. God moved me 270 miles away so that I would not have this super busy schedule that would keep breaking up my routine

3. Because I am not strung out into a million different activities and play groups, I now have energy and time to do lesson plans and prepare and then teach.

4.  God brought a friend along who is now co-teaching with me and she teaches all 4 kids on Tuesday and I get the day off to do whatever I want!  Whaaaaaat????!!!  Oh God, you outdid yourself!!

Here, what I thought was impossible, God made SO possible.  I LOVE it!

Pleasing to you, Father

"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer"- Psalms 19:14.  I love that verse.  As I am sitting here, it is the beloved nap time and I am drinking a cup of hot coffee, feeling the Lord's pull to blog about something.  I felt Him tug at my heart and say "just open up a blog post and start typing", so here I am and here I go.

Why is Psalms 19:14 so important to me?  Well, scripture says that whatever is in our hearts will eventually make it out of our mouths into the world.  I, as all may know, am a young mother of two precious, stinky boys, 3 and 4 years old.  A huge part of their character is being developed right now; before the age of 5.  So why would this verse be so vital to me?  Because whatever is on my heart, will come out of my mouth...eventually...and into the ears, minds and hears of my little boys who are soaking SO MUCH of what I say on a daily basis.  For example, we have these two dogs, one of which is Sancho Panza...let's just say, in my heart of hearts, I don't really looooove this dog.  So, when he is bad, everything in my heart about this dog comes out of my mouth..."Sancho!!!!!!  You are a BAD DOG!!  Sancho, no one really likes you!!!" Etc etc.  Well, who is watching this bad behavior of mine?  My boys...especially Parkerman, will watch me and be able to recount the whole thing to daddy (who by the way adores Sancho) when he gets home.  Yikes....Parker learned behavior...what did he learn?  When a dog frustrates you...you yell and scream at it.  "Anger of man, does not produce the righteousness of God"...my anger, no matter how justified, will NEVER produce righteousness in my children for whom I pray all-of-the-time that they will hunger and thirst for righteousness!!  

I know that was a silly example, but it's not really.  These little boys LEARN right and wrong majoritally from me, due to my husby working and going to school full time.  So all of my behaviors are being watched.  My heart needs to be meditating on TRUTH and what is pleasing to HIM!  When fear, anxiety, jealousy, and other "gunk" crowds your mind, and therefore your heart, you will notice that it will show up in your life in some form...you snap at your kids, you yell at the dog, you criticize everyone you know, you gossip...are these things we want our little children who we are desperately trying to raise to love Jesus to see and learn?  I sure don't.  Yet everyday I will find one of these lovely "flaws" show up in my life.  I pray on a regular basis, "Father God, please cover my mistakes with my children, help us unlearn bad behavior together, and take from my children's mind the mess-ups I had today." 

So how do we slowly fix this?  "Let the words if my mouth and the meditations of my heart, be acceptable to you, oh God!".  When you find "discord" in your mind or emotions...check it against The Lord...is it pleasing to Him?  No?  Then "put it away".  The Bible tells us to "put away" bad behavior...which means we have to get up, and take action, and put away a thought or reaction, etc.  Confess it to God, and replace it.  Instead of focussing on how mad you are at someone who wronged you, or how you feel like you were jipped in the area of life...whether it be salary or money or lack of time by yourself as a young mother...start reciting scripture, use Psams 19:14 as your starting place.  And most of all, know that it is impossible for you to be the perfect parent.  You MUST rely on God's beautiful strength to raise these children and know they will not be perfect...even God, who was the PERFECT parent, had kids who rebelled... :).

I love you dreams...

Tonight, Parker was getting into bed and he said "mommy...tonight I'm not going to have bad dreams...I'm going to dream that I followed you around and said 'I love you' all day".  Agh!!!  I love that boy!!!  He melts me!  Of course...that comment started the "I love you fest" between me, him and Beckham!  It was the best!

One of my favorites..:

To dunk Oreos in milk with my little loves...

 

My God, with the riches of His mercy...

I sit here with my heart filled so deeply with gratitude, I must "count the ways", I must stack my rocks outside of MY Jordan so that I will never forget what The Lord has done....
Where do I begin...ok, I will start with the YMCA.  I have ALWAYS wanted and desired to be able to go to a gym and exercise and let my boys play in the children area.  Well, that has NEVER happened due to a) finances haven't lent themselves and b) my children cry the whole time and I can't do it.  Well, we get out here and God placed the home HE HAND PICKED for us 2 minutes down the road from my little Canaan, the Ryan Family YMCA :).  Not only can we afford it, but my kids have a SUPER BLAST in the kids area!!  They are surrounded by windows so I am constantly peaking at them and they are either running through this giant play gym or sitting and doing a craft, or having story time, or having a snack or outside doing an obstical course!!!  I KNOW!!!! Pretty unbelievable!!  AND I get to go exercise ANY time I want!!  I LOVE IT!!  The next beautiful thing about the Y, is that it has precious little kids classes that I will go to with Parker and Beckham for their "exercise" class...they think its the cats meow!  They love it!!!

Ok, so that alone was such a GIFT from my God, I am so grateful for.  The last thing I will highlight, though there are more is the pool.  Now, one of the things that broke my heart about leaving our home was that we would never have our amazing pool experiences anymore...there are NO pools up here............eeeeeeeexcept at the YMCA....LOOK AT THIS POOL!!!!  It's almost exactly what we had at home....God most preciously kissed me on the forehead and said..."here my sweet daughter, I want you to still enjoy your pool" 

Oh Father!!!!!  THANKYOU from the bottom of my unworthy heart!!!

The second massive blessing is this park. 

 One of my concerns about up here is there were not neighborhood parks on every corner....where was I going to take my crazy energetic boys to go crazy at???  Well, I never noticed this massive amazing park until we officially moved up here, but it's right down the street, it has covered picnic tables for picnics, soccer fields, tons and tons of play areas...my heart overflows...the boys love it and I am ECSTATIC!  It's so close to home and well...BLESSING my father...another kiss on my forehead from HIM!

Another sweet blessing that is kind of silly is HEB.  Everyone who knows me, knows I LOVED my Summerwood HEB.  Well, the nearest one is 30 minutes away here.  So I was kind of bummed, but God has filled my grocery cup with amazing farmers market type stores around here that I am loooving.  However, the other day I had to make the trip to what would be now known as my HEB...as I approached the store and walked in, I noticed it literally was a carbon copy of the Summerwood HEB!!!!!  I truly felt like I was in Summerwood doing what I did ever week, and it felt amazing...I looked up to heaven and said..."Father, THANKYOU for bringing me home, for an hour or two....you blessed me with this"...It was so much like my HEB, that I had a guy ask me if I knew where the peanut butter was...yep!  Isle 2!!!  Oh HEB, it was so good to see you again :). 

 
Days are so so fun....just enjoying my boys, playing at our house is so so fun...it is such a fantastic home, yard, driveway and street!!!  So cool!!!  However, I'm starting to feel the finality of leaving
Houston...my family, my church family....it's starting to hurt!!!  However, my God has been so kind,
so gracious so AMAZINGLY GOOD to me, I cannot help but just praise and thank Him.  Father, though my heart aches for the people that filled my Houston life....I am so so so grateful for your kindness here...I am so at peace that I am where you want me and THAT alone makes it easier.   Oh Father...it is well!

Trucks!!

Today had sooooooo many blessings!!! One of the blessings was figuring out a route for the boys to drive their power wheel trucks on.  You see, one of our absolute JOYS back in Houston was going over to a cul-de-sac close by and them driving their trucks around while I sat in my lawn chair and blissfully watched.  Well, here there is NO cul-de-sac and it was wearing me out walking/running after them constantly looking over my shoulder for cars!  It was getting to be a dread instead if excitement for me.  Well, God took care of it!  I realized the street our driveway is on is super slow...and it's a PERFECT truck route for the boys to drive up and down.  I just sit on my driveway and once again blissfully watch my boys drive up and down our little cross street!!!  Isn't God so good?!?!?? 

Wish I had a picture...

Yesterday we woke up to my precious little boys crawling in bed with us in our new house.  Parker snuggling in my arms and Beckham snuggled up to my back with his arm wrapped around my neck.  Praising God for that morning.  That was such a beautiful time and I wished I had a picture of it :), but that would have meant that one of us would have had to move...and THAT wasn't going to happen :).

My replacement fruit...

Just sitting here in my back yard of the new house in Ft. Worth praising and thanking God for all of the blessings.  One in particular that I am filled with appreciation for is in this picture.  

One thing I was so sad about leaving our old house was our incredible peach tree that for the first time ever was COVERED in peaches...I could have walked up anytime grabbed a peach and eaten it right off the tree....however, we left the house before they were ripe.  :(. Then I get up here and see that I have THREE fig trees that are covered in figs that I can just walk up to at any given time, pick one off and eat it!!!!  God is soooooo good to give me a replacement.

JOY!!

One if our little joys in life is the splash pad and the swimming pool!!!  Here are some pics of the boys joyously playing with each other at the splash pad... I sit and just RELISH in watching them play with such JOY!!!

 
 

Fun day at the mall with Gigi and mommy!

Hugging it out in the dressing room

 They got to ride the carousel too!

Wave at Gigi boys!!!

 

 

 

Am I boasting in what is right?

Jeremiah 9:23-24 talks about how it pleases The Lord for us to boast, not about our wisdom or riches, but about knowing HIM!  

As a mother, and a wife and a daughter of God, what am I boasting about?  Hmmm...something to think about!

Movies!!

Beckhams first movie...Despicable Me 2. I love these pics!!  They both did great...watched the whole movie!!

 

 

 

Realization

I had a realization this week while I was up in Ft Worth with the boys waiting for Blake to come.  I will probably be doing life a lot with "just me and the boys".  With Blake working full time and going to school full time, it will be just me, and "breaks" will be few and far between.  I am so grateful to The Lord for bringing me to the point of my calling as a mother.  (I explain that calling in this post http://www.indeeforrest.blogspot.com/2013/07/it-is-my-calling-motherhood.html?m=1)

This week I had a new perspective on the "work" of being a mother...when I started feeling myself say "it would be so much easier to get my house in order if I just had someone to watch the boys", I was able to stop and say "no, they are my mission...though it's more work to have boys running around un-doing all the work I have done :), they are my calling and my calling of training, loving and raising these boys is more important right now."  YES it's exhausting and YES my "to-do" list is not being checked off the way I wanted it to be...but that's my life right now.  I must die to myself in order to serve The Lord in this stage of life.  One day I will get to address my life the way I want to address it, but now, I must rest...rest that MY desires and MY "relaxation quota" will not be met the way I want.  

On our way!

This is us on our way to NEST finally! Still have a little more time in Atascocita , but at least get to go spend some time in our house!!

 

Some of our normals!

Praise God we got to experience some of our normals this week, at OUR home!! It was Heaven!  

"Big truck" drive
 

 

What kind if gum???

Parker loves his gum!  Well, every time he hears paper crinkling he will holler up to the front seat and ask "what you eatin daddddddyyy?"  So then we announce "gum" and Parker wants some....then as he is looking through the gum bag he asks Blake what kind if gum he is eating to help make his decision!  I love that!  :)

Water tower!!!

I love that my boys point out every water tower they see when we are on the road!  Oh, these little joys of raising kids.  Here is one we saw :)

 

New house!

Here us our new house!  We love love love it!!  It is such a blessing from The Lord, and I will forever be grateful!  It's cozy, comfortable and is everything we need!!!