Things to remember-November

Before I begin I had a random quote to share:) I came across it the other day...I thought in a short paragraph it captured some of what motherhood is like. One of the hardest things you will ever experience...full of so many hard overwhelming emotions and decisions on. a. daily. basis.

Yet wrapped in so much joy.

Anyways thought I'd share it just because I liked it:

"Motherhood should come with a twinkle in the eye and a warning. A warning that you will never be the same; that before it’s over your heart will have cracked into a thousand tiny splinters of love so profound your body can barely contain what your soul is experiencing. That you will hurt in ways no one could prepare you for and ache with a vulnerability no one can protect you from.

And that as hard as it is, you would sign up to do it all over again without a second’s hesitation."

True words. I would without a moment's hesitation.

Anways half way through Decemeber I remember to do my usual documenting of the 'little things' Breyton did throughout November....I know I'm cherishing each moment and praying for those who don't have this privilege any longer.

So here we go..

1) I had been sick with fever and sore throat and my sweet little boy randomly said prayers for mommy.....he would sit by me and say, "Dear God, please make mommy better.".

2) One of Breyton's 'phrases' that he's said a lot lately is, "You are awesome!". It's so funny and sweet when he says it to you(or himself:)....I'm assuming he picked that up from his Kid's Day Out class at church or Awana's group.

3) A few times this past month when Mason was talking on the phone Breyton would start to follow him pacing around trying to copy every word Mason said. You probably had to be there, but it was hilarious. I caught a small part on video (after I recovered from laughing) because Mason could hardly carry on a conversation with his mini-me loudly mimicking him.

4) Breyton was asked "How did he get to be so brave?" and he responded, "God made me brave!". Love the little unexpected things he's says!

5) B and I always pray at bedtime...and my prayer usually includes please bring daddy home safe or something along those lines. So the other night after I finished B said, " Jesus can't carry daddy! Daddy is too big!" and I explained that Jesus is bigger than anything and can protect us....but B still still insisted 'daddy is too big' and is not convinced that God is big enough to physically carry daddy lol. I believe Breyton thinks daddy is as big and strong as they come....though I figure soon enough he will understand what mommy means! ha Still love hearing what his little mind comes up with.

6) Thought I should note- I believe B had his first experiences with nightmares at the beginning of November. He woke up yelling for me a little more frantically and said, "There was a big dog scratching at the window trying to get him." then the next day he said, "There was a big mean dog in his bathroom". Thankfully they only happened two different nights and have not happened since...so hopefully it's not a commom thing.

7) Lastly, a few other random funny things I remember B saying last month:  While playing one day he told me, "Awe man mom! I got an owie. Look, right here on my big muscle!".  Then while playing I asked B if I could play with one of his airplanes too...after some thought he said, "Ummm, no. Maybe you should ask for your own for Christmas." And, lastly Breyton loved to call Mason 'father' a lot this past month and it was cute every time he would say it!

Oh, and here are some pics-

                                               My sweetie pie before KDO one morning.

 

                     Below he is checkin out his 'snake' pancake that we made!

 

                   Breyton and all his dino buddies are having a meeting it appears:)

Now one of the dinosaurs is attacking the other.....

 

 

Now they are all taking turns 'eating' the Christmas tree. Good times.

Restless.

 

This is kind of long.

I've been feeling restless the past few days. Oddly enough writing has become an outlet for me(and if you knew me before you know how odd this is because I used to HATE writing.) Though tonight I have a hard time even putting it into words...I just know God is up to something.

I've felt like God is asking more. More of my heart. More of my life. God and I have this conversation quite often over the past it seems. I always do have good intentions! I really do intend to start living different....to start living more as Jesus has called me as a disciple. Usually I do make some changes, but none of them are ever as big as I feel He, my King, is asking of me.

Possibly asking of all of us.

So long story short, after God and I have these conversations, given some time I eventually 'forget' what God really wanted.....I get caught up in life again and I realize how hard it is to really live differently when surrounded by the 'American dream'. I get back in my complacency, the comfort, the ease, of just going a long with everyone around me. Just trying to be a little "spiritually above" the average person, so that I might feel better about myself. Oh, it's so terribly wrong. It may make me feel better, but God is not comparing me to anyone else and giving me credit for doing a teeny bit more. He is looking at what He has asked of ME and whether or not I'm available and saying "yes".

I sat here and cried today thinking about how Jesus would have lived if He was walking this earth in the 21st century.... then repenting for all my selfishness. Also,trying to rationalize and come up with all these excuses for why I hold myself back when I truly trust and believe in God. Why, is it so hard to let go of what this world has to offer? When God stands before us offering us everything we need for all eternity!

I realize it's a daily battle- not one I'm going to just 'win' and never have to look back. So don't be watching me because I will fail at times and I'm going to be far from getting it all right. It is going to be a daily process of picking up my cross and laying down what the world tries to put in my hands. It's going to be in every choice, in every word I say, every emotion I feel, every action I choose.....but I'm not going to be doing this in my own power My Savior, My Redeemer has already defeated this world and through Him we have the same power.

In my restless 'searching' God led me to this other blog post which I now want to share with you. God has not shown me what all He has planned for my life and nor do I think I will get to see the big picture ahead of time. He has shown me I don't need a '5 year plan', actually my 5 year plan may have been what has been holding me back. Right now I know our future includes foster care and adoption and only He knows the rest of the details. I just need to wake up each day tuned in to what He has in store for that day and be ready to follow His leading.

I encourage you to read more on this girls story, who wrote this post, it's hard not to be shaken up just a little. She is 22 years old and God is already leaving an amazing legacy through her willingness. As we all know we are not ALL called to move to Africa(or fill in the blank to some other foreign country) to serve God fully....probably most of us are not, but I bet we all need to be striving to do a little more right where we are at!

(There is a whole story behind this blog post and you can follow the link to read more..)

 HERE is the link back to her full original post and blog...and below I have an excerpt that really spoke to me:

"A few days ago an American woman who had spent about three days of her life in a third world country looked at me and said, “I would SO love to do what you do. I would do it in a heartbeat. Oh, I would take 14 kids in a second!” It is a good thing that I was having a graceful day, because I said, “Aw that’s nice.” But my not so graceful heart was angry. And the not so graceful voice in my head wanted to say to her, “Ok then, do it. I can have you 14 orphaned, abandoned, uncared for children tomorrow. So here is what you have to do: Quit school. Quit your job. Sell your stuff. Disobey and disappoint your parents. Break your little brother’s heart. Lose all but about a handful of friends because the rest of them think you have gone off the deep end. Break up with the love of your life. Move to a country where you know one person and none of the language. And when you are finished, I will be here waiting with your 14 children!” I wanted to ask her what was stopping her, knowing that the answer would be her comfort. I wanted to look at her and tell her that my life was full and joyful and WONDERFUL, but I also wanted to tell her to COUNT THE COST. Because my life IS full and joyful and wonderful, but it is NOT easy. My life is NOT glamorous. I do not expect it to be. I do not think that anything about carrying a cross was easy or glamorous either.

Which brings me to my point. I am not actually that angry about what that woman said, it was just an offhanded comment. But it got me to thinking… How many times do we grieve our sweet Savior’s heart because we refuse to COUNT THE COST? How many times do we choose comfort instead of the cross?

In my NIV Bible, the header above Luke 9:57-62 says, “The Cost of Following Jesus.” Here it is, plain and simple, laid out for us by the Lord. “As they were walking along the road, a man said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.” He said to another man, “Follow me.” But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my Father.” Jesus said to Him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Still another said, “I will follow you Lord, but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts His hand to the plow and looks back will be fit to enter the Kingdom of God.” THIS IS SERIOUS STUFF. A little later in Luke 14:25, “The Cost of Being a Disciple,” Jesus tells the crowds gathered around Him, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes even his own life – he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry His cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to complete it; everyone who sees it will ridicule him saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first consider if he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and ask for terms of peace. In the same way any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.”

In Luke, in the days of Jesus, He expected EVERYTHING of his disciples. Do we believe that He requires the same today? We sure don’t act like it. If you ever read my blog or have heard me speak then you have heard me reference Matthew 25, the parable of the sheep and the goats. Jesus basically looks straight at the crowd and tells them that when He comes back, those who have seen the needy and met their needs will come with Him to heaven. He also says that those who have seen the needy and done nothing will be sent away to “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Right, hell. This is heavy, I know, but I believe that it is TRUE. I believe that the words of Jesus are timeless and therefore still apply to anyone desiring to be His follower today. (Oh, and in case you think you can get away with saying that you have not seen Jesus naked or hungry or thirsty or in need and therefore you are off the hook, let me help you. 30,000 children will die today because of hunger or preventable disease. There. Now you know. Now you are responsible too.) Faith without good deeds is DEAD, my friends. Yes, I believe fully in salvation by His grace alone. I do not believe that anything we do or work for will save us. I also believe that if we are indeed saved, meaning that He lives inside of us, we will desire to do what is pleasing to Him. That if we really love Him with all our hearts and all our strength, NOTHING will feel like sacrifice in light of the promise that one day we will get to be with Him forever. Automatically, we will help those in need, we will give our all, we will love our neighbor as our self, because our heart is aligned with His. But so many don’t. This then begs the question: If we are not walking in the words of Jesus, do we truly know Him? Do we really know and believe in the Jesus of the Bible. Because if we do, if we believe what He says is true, our lives will be powerfully, unimaginable, radically different than the lives of those around us. He requires EVERYTHING.

I wonder today if I had been one of the people listening to Jesus as He spoke in Luke 9 and 14, if Jesus would have convinced me to follow Him or if I would have walked away. I believe I would have really really wanted to say goodbye to my family. I wonder about “Christians” today. We wear Jesus on our T-shirts, we wear His cross around our neck and a bumper sticker with His name on it on our car. Have we just laid the foundation without being able to build the building? Does Jesus feel like I did when a woman I didn’t know told me she would love to do what I do, but I knew that she never would? Do we claim the precious name of Jesus Christ without counting the cost? Without being willing to REALLY give it all? And does Jesus, in His infinite grace, look at us and say, “Aw, that’s nice,” but really with the furry that he flipped over the tables in the temple wants to spit our lukewarm selves out of His mouth?

This is heavy on my heart. I have spent hours typing it to get the words out right and still I feel like I am rambling. If you would like more references on God’s heart for the poor, try Isaiah 56-58, Proverbs 14:31, 21:13, 28:27, Matthew 19:16- 30, Luke 6:20-25, 18:18, James 5:1… Please feel free to add more in your comments! If we believe that these words are true, the way we are living is not tolerable. How can we live in willful disobedience and claim to know Jesus Christ?

I do not claim to have the answers. I do not claim to be doing it right. I do claim to believe that the words of Jesus are absolutely true and apply to me, right now today. I want to give EVERYTHING, no matter the cost. NO MATTER THE COST. Because I believe that nothing is sacrifice in light of eternity with Christ.

Please take an hour of your time to listen to this sermon my David Platt of Birmingham, Alabama. I pray that it would drastically change your life: www.brookhills.org/media/series/radical"
~Kisses from Katie blogspot

Another chapter closed...excited for new begginings!

We close on the house at 10 am tomorrow! After many 'closing' delays we are excited it's here.

Of course we procrastinated on having house cleared out till the week of....so we FINALLY got everything completely out of every nook and cranny in our house. We have worked on it every single weekend since we 'moved' out October 1st.

It. was. never. ending.

Let's just say by this past Monday/Tuesday (which is our weekend) we were completely sick of everything. I just wanted to give it all away or throw it away depending. Obviously we can't need it since we've lived 2 months without it, right?!

Anyways, I was getting a fairly sour attititude towards it all after our second long drive to Shawnee to take a load down there for storage. Then God always has a way of putting you back in your place:) and making you look at the glass half full.  I was in the car alone for the hour drive down and a bunch of non-'coincidence' things happened. Pretty cool how one can go into the car grumbling about wasting yet another entire day moving 'junk'....then shortly after come out praising God that we have been blessed with sooo much 'junk' that we have to move and that our house sold so quickly that we had a deadline to get it all out by.

As usual God is good. End of story. :)

Oh, and here are a few last pics (thankfully) my neighbor suggested we should take!

 This is us as we said our final good-bye to our first house..(.not sure if I should put a sad face or happy face here lol). It's bittersweet. Leaning more towards sweet though:)

Empty living room....

Closing and walking away from our pretty blue door for the last time!

Also, a quick update: We did start our training for DHS foster care certification this morning. It's a 9 week program and then we are done! I always hear people say this and it's true....crazy how the devil tries to throw a bunch of things at you when you are trying to accomplish a work that God has called you to. First day of class and it was one of those mornings where almost everything went wrong and then after sitting in our 3+ hour class we are welcomed with a parking ticket when we come out. Ya know what though it wasn't really all that discouraging...in fact in many ways I'm more sure than ever that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing.

After all I'm becoming more and more aware anything that God calls you to is not easy, but the biggest blessings usually come through the hardest of trials! So bring it.

Just the two of us.

These pics make me feel like newlyweds all over again! I've been planning on having some 'couples' photos taken for awhile.... I wanted some new ones to display in our bedroom other than just our engagement and wedding pics since those were over 5 years ago now.

Soo happy we got some done finally! I'm excited to have some current ones knowing we are more in love now than we were back then:) Once again thank you to Danielle Nicole Photography for capturing some pics I know I will cherish for a long time.

 

 

 

B's amazingly cute 3 year pics!

We had current family photos taken finally! Its been over a year and a half since we last had some done (if you don't count the few Christmas ones we had done last year:). Breyton was not even 2 last time we had them taken, so I have been needing some new ones of him especially because they change so quickly when they are this little.  My friend Danielle of 'Danielle Nicole Photoghraphy' took them as usual and she did an exceptionally amazing job! I just LOVE all of them. If you are needing pics I highly recommend her;)

 I'm going to share all the pics in two separate posts because Mason and I had some 'couples' photos taken and that way there won't be waayy too many photos in just this one post! :)


Here's our little man getting so big and more and more handsome each passing day:

 

He's about as cute as they come. I love him so much and can't help but smile when looking at his pictures:D Thanks for letting me brag on him!

(Good) Behavior chart for young children.

I had never really thought about doing a behavior chart for Breyton, but I have run across them several times on pinterest now, so I decided to give it a try. B's behavior has actually improved over the past few weeks...at least the amount of tantrums seems to be slowly declining. I like the idea of a tangible thing he can see and be a part of to recognize good (or lack thereof) behavior.

                                                          Day 1

 This already 'cheap' idea was free since I had the poster board from B's birthday party-

I got the basic idea from this chart here and just tweaked it some. One thing I think will be good is that B doesn't respond well to time outs or spankings AT ALL(they make him more out of control).....so any other idea I can come up with to encourage good behavior and discourage bad behavior without the primary use of those two forms of discipline is a good thing.

Anyways, this is day 1. Therefore, it's hard to say much yet....but B has stopped doing a bad behavior twice today when I told him he was about to 'lose a coin'. If the idea is a flop I can still use the chart B and I made for a 'chore' chart soon:) I'll keep ya posted on how this goes!

Things to remember~ October (and other updates:))

So I realized that October was too crazy and hard of a month...so I didn't keep track of stuff too much!



However, I still wanted to make a post about the little things I loved about Breyton last month! Off the top of my head what I remember most about Breyton during October is his ever growing crazy imagination! He loves to pretend our new closet is a 'cave' and finds some new story to conjure up, of course involving animals, every time he plays in there.


In the car the a few weeks ago he randomly decided an ice cube in his cup was a baby shark swimming around. As he realized the ice cube melted he was crying out that his shark had died. (Good lesson about how water can be in many forms, including ice, and that the sun will melt it lol.)


The one word that B used a lot this past month that made me laugh was 'apparently'. He brought me a broke toy and said, "Apparently I broke this mom." and then at bedtime he was taking awhile to go to sleep and said, "Apparently I'm not sleepy". He really uses it quite often....apparently Mason and I use that word quite often ourselves we've noticed. :o)


Also, Breyton loved the pumpkin patch and Halloween of course this year! He was a monkey and wanted to wear his costume for several days while running around making monkey noises.

Here's a few pic of our little monkey and from the pumpkin patch:



















On a separate note: I had said last month that we hoped to have good news about the adoption process soon and I finally do!! We were contacted by our new case worker about 2 weeks ago. This new girl is very nice and seems to be on top of actually doing her job while keeping us informed....though ALL of our file(paperwork, fingerprints, exams, etc) were lost in Logan County DHS. We had to get new paperwork and start the process over since our file was not showing up anywhere-

Then we got AWESOME news (answered prayer for sure) that our file had been found! Some how it ended up in Payne county. Anyways the file is on it's way to our current case worker and we have our home assessment set up for this coming Wednesday morning. Praying things start moving along a little more smoothly and we will be well on our way to being done with certification! Excited!!!

P.S. one last thing- in case you haven't heard I had to give God some more praise for our house selling!!! We have not closed yet, because it was pushed back to the 27th by the bank(so still praying)....but the process has been going great and couldn't ask for more agreeable or flexible buyers to work with!