So Blessed!

So for those of you non-parents out there, feeding your kid either in the late night or the early morning is one of the coolest experiences (when you get past the whole "I'd rather be in bed right now feeling"). ;) The house is quiet, your normally very active little baby just wants to be held & cuddled with. I love it (when I'm not totally sleep deprived)! Anyways the other day we got some of that time together & it wasn't too late in the evening so I wasn't in the zoned out stage. Ian was out late so we had the house to ourselves & I had all of the lights dimmed so Molly just had this really soft lighting on her. She was soo beautiful! I actually started crying a little just looking at my baby & realizing how blessed I was to be her mom. She was all nestled up next to me staring at my w/ those big blue Ian eyes. It was a great mom moment. :) So I'm sitting there tearing up at how much I love being the mom of this precious creature & I'm just drinking her in. I mean we have a gorgeous baby! Sometimes we just stare at her. So she gives me this really quizical look. I tell her "it's okay love, Mommy's not sad, Mommy just loves you so much". Then my baby girl starts pooping like nothing else, and loudly! I realized that she wasn't giving me the quizical "what's going on" look, she's giving me the "I'm about to poop like I've never pooped before" look. And she did! So it was a very funny way to end a very precious moment. I guess that's motherhood right? ;)

Spa Recipes

So I have been promising these recipes for awhile now & I keep forgetting to post them. :-P The book I got them from (Mom Spa) is due at the library so I decided to finally get these posted before I start getting fined! (I used these for a spa day for my small group girls. It was a huge hit! Can't wait for the repeat.) :)






Lemon Lavender Lift Foot Rub
1/4 cup Epsom salts
1/2 cut sea salt
2 ounces Apricot Kernel Oil
10 drops lemon essential oil
20 drops lavender essential oil
2 Tbsp chopped lemon zest
3 dried lavender buds (seeds removed from twigs)

Apricot Facial Scrub
1 medium apricot
1 Tbsp aloe vera juice
1 Tbsp honey
1 crushed vitamin E capsule
1/2 Tbsp crushed almonds

2-Minute Manicure
1/4 cup Epsom salts
1/2 cup sea salt
2 ounces apricot kernel oil
10 - 15 drops of your favorite essential oil

Other fun things we did:
I put a few drops of essential oil in some cheap non-scented lotion from Whole foods. Mmmm it smelled soo good! Their 365 product line is great!

I soaked some cotton pads in Witch hazel then stuck them in the freezer to chill. Felt great on the eyes & helped relieve my puffy "I haven't slept in days" look that I'm always toting around. :-P

I heated up some washclothes that had a bit of essential oil on them & we draped them over our faces before doing the scrub. Opened up our pores & was so relaxing! (you're supposed to heat them in a rice cooker but I didn't have one)

Next on my list of things to try:

Peachy Face Treatment
1 ripe peach
1/4 cup plain yogurt
2 Tbsp honey
(leave on for 15-20 minutes)

Orange Bath Oil
1 fresh orange (sliced)
2 Tbsp almond oil
10 drops citrus essential oil
(run a hot bath, add the oils & float the orange slices in the water)

Better Toughen Up Kiddo!

Hehe ...

So today I went to hang out w/ one of my Kirkland mom friends. I had a really great time hanging out w/ her & her kiddos. It was hilarious though seeing my little tyke interact w/ her kids (she has three kids, the oldest is 4? and the youngest is 1).

So I put Molly down on her quilt to roll around & I had packed a few toys for her. The other kids were so excited to see Molly. It was cute to see the other two little ones crawling over to say hi. My little baby was surrounded by admirers. However they soon lost interest in Molly & honed in on her toys (including the 4 year old!). It was so funny! Molly isn't very territorial w/ her stuff so she just let them take her toys (we had to do continual toy swaps). I think I need to teach Molly to stand up to the other kids a little bit! Sarah & Jane were over the other day & the same thing happened then! Jane crawled over & wanted Molly's elephant rattle. We did a toy swap & as soon as Jane had the rattle she wanted to swap toys again! It's a good thing that Molly is so sharing w/ her stuff. :)

Baby Blues

So to preface this post I have to say that I adore my life. I love my little baby, I love my husband, and I really enjoy staying at home. However I do get the blues every so often & this past week has been one of those oftens. I'm sure a huge chunk of it is simply sleep deprivation. :-P My adorable little baby has turned into a little terror at night. Lately she's started thrashing around in her sleep & she'll roll over ont her tummy & then wake up screaming b/c she doesn't know how she got there or how to get back. Poor thing. Most of the time I feel sorry for her. I do have to admit there are times when I am just annoyed at her (awful right? I know she's a baby but man it's hard to feel all loving after being woken up multiple times during the night). I was actually really blessed when a bunch of Mars Hill moms told me this is totally normal. Part of me is exhausted from the lack of sleep but I think a huge part of the exhaustion is emotional ... I mean my baby is supposed to be sleeping through the night right? It's so hard as a mom not to feel guilty or stressed when things aren't happening "the way they're supposed to".


So I'm going through a lot of changes right now (kinda goes w/o saying). Through all of these changes my group of friends has drastically changed. I am blessed to have some really cool new friends but I'm in one of those moods lately where I don't want to have to meet new people! :-P Those of you who know me well know how incredibly akward I am around new people ... I never know the right thing to say ... I'm just not an outgoing person & I'm just awkward! Anyways I've just been missing old friends lately. Thankfully though I am about to be surrounded by a bunch of them. :) Can't wait to see you all soon! I just want to be around people who know that I am super goofy & that I have a really odd sense of humor (I think most people always assume that Ian is the goofy one & I'm the super serious spouse). I want someone to just come give me a hug & not have to make small talk. :-P I do have a few of those friends here, it just doesn't seem like that many right now (I left work, our small group split, we had a kid which drastically changed our hanging out patterns ...). Anyways it's probably not the baby blues, it's probably just the blues but whatever. I've just been a little blue lately. Knowing me I'll post some super happy thing tomorrow (my moods never last for long). :-P
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Hmmm... so I just realized that I never posted this. So not to suprising but my mood has swung back the other direction again. I'm still awkward around new people, and I still can't wait to see my old friends but I am much more excited about getting to know the new people in my life. I have been richly blessed. I love my old friends & I miss you all tremendously but my new friends are pretty dang cool as well & I'm starting to get more comfortable around them. Also I'm starting to realize that just b/c I don't see all of my "old friends" as often as I would like that they're still there ... it just takes more work now to keep in touch. Thank you all (old friends, and new friends) just for loving me & putting up w/ me during my ups & downs. I appreciate you all more then you will ever know. :)

Comedy of Errors :-P

My Wed afternoon was fairly amusing so I think I should share it w/ ya'll. So I come home from a lovely walk in the park w/ one of my mom friends. It's been a gorgeous day so far. So I feed & change Molly since we've been out for a bit & lay her down for a nap. I go to wash my hands & we have no water! All of a sudden I'm like "wait, I did pay all of our bills right?". Our electricity worked so I have no idea why I was suddenly afraid that I forgot our utilities bill (especially since I haven't missed a bill yet) but sleep deprivation does weird things to your mind. So I go online to check if I paid the bill & our account is negative! Now we've never overdrawn our account so my stomach just plummeted. I go to check our history & there is this significant withdrawal over the weekend that I don't remember making (also the name on it is incomprehensible it's a code ... not a real name). I'm like wow someone totally stole our money! (oh and Ian is at a UI meeting all day so he's totally incommunicado). So I'm trying to call the bank & they keep needing info like the last 4 of Ian's soc (which I forgot). So I'm trying to grab the folder that has all of our info in it but of course I'm in the middle of a big pillow project & I had decided to leave all of my sewing stuff on top of our filing cabinet. So I find the file, punch in our info & then Molly decides to have a MELTDOWN. So I run the baby room & she will not settle down. As soon as I think I've got her settled she'll flip over onto her tummy & start screaming bloody murder. Oh & I have 15 people showing up in a few hours for dinner & my dishes are all unwashed in the dishwasher (I loaded it but didn't run it) & I haven't prepped the food yet (and I have no water). So I finally get Molly settled down & I go back to the bank website & all of a sudden it hits me. We withdrew a bunch of money from our SAVINGS account to invest in Ian's fidelity account. Only we must have hit the wrong button & we took it from our CHECKING account (which we don't keep a lot of cash in). Oh no. Then I see $4,000 on our history after the withdrawal. I'm in such shock right now about what we did that I think we're being charged $4,000 for overdrawing out account. I freaked. Then I looked at it again. Nope it was a deposit into our account to help cover the over withdrawal. Oh yeah, we signed up for over withdrawal protection. Duh! :-P That money came from our credit card to help cover the over withdrawal.

So I calmed down. Molly started fussing again so this time I calmly went over & got her to sleep. Then I moved money around & paid off the credit card that covered our over withdrawal protection. I called Pizza Hut & ordered pizza for dinner (put the produce away for the dinner I was planning on making) and decided to go buy paper plates & drinks once Molly woke up. Geez what a way to come home! :-P It all ended up being very chill but I massively freaked out at the time. :-P Also our water came back on after a bit (turns out we had an emergency water shut down for some reason or another but it was all dealt w/ fairly quickly).

My lesson to all of you new parents: Don't try to multi task while you're sleep deprived (especially if it's for anything important). It's not pretty :-P

Eyes of Eternity

Some things I'm thinking about right now ....

I recently attended a memorial service for my friend's grandmother. While her death was a horrible & sad occasion, her memorial service was a beautiful one. The family made a point of celebrating her life & her legacy. The songs they picked out were ones that praised God & spoke of trusting in Him. Throughout the sermon they spoke of this amazing legacy she left behind (a beautiful family that loves Jesus). It was an awesome service. Instead of mourning her death, everyone celebrated her life, especially her current life right now w/ Jesus.

I had just finished reading a chapter in "How People Change" that talked about looking at our lives through the eyes of eternity (how odd that I was reading this chapter on this specific week). It basically talked about God's ultimate plan for our lives (sanctification). At small group that week one of the girls stated that God isn't looking out for our happiness. He loves us too much for that ... God is looking out for our sanctification. This is still a hard concept for me .... I don't really want that extra sanctification. I mean I do, I just don't want to have to go through anything hard. Here is a scripture I read that week regarding eternity:

"And he said, 'These are they who have come out of the great triculation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore,
'they are before the throne of god
and serve Him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne
will spread out his tent over them.
Never again will they hunger;
never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat upon them,
nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepard;
he will lead them to springs of living water.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes' "
(Revelations 7:9-17)

Somewhat recently I was reading the Anne of Green Gables series to Molly (I know I'm such a girl!). Anyways one passage in "Anne of the Island" caught my eye & still sticks w/ me. Anne's old friend Ruby is dying & she's scared to die b/c heaven won't be what she's used to down on earth (she talks about how she'll be homesick in Heaven). Anne is sad b/c she realizes that her friend will feel alienated in heaven. The book talks about how none of Ruby's shallow & frivilous life will be at home in heaven. Now I don't agree w/ all of the theology in these books but I was struck by this passage. I have been soo blessed on this Earth. I've had so many wonderful opportunities & life experiences; I was raised in a wonderful family & now I have an amazing husband and a beautiful baby girl. Sometimes I get so caught up in all of the blessings that I take my eyes off of the Creator. I don't want to be like Ruby where all of my hopes & dreams are based on this earth. What is that CS Lewis quote? "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and lust and ambition when infinate joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to keep on making mud-pie in the slums because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a vacation at the beach." If I really wanted to be happy, I would seek God. Oh, but God is abstract! It takes effort to reach God. So I settle. I settle for weak amusements that require no effort. What a lazy fool I am!!" - CS Lewis

Anyways I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone else, but this is what I've been thinking about lately. I've been thinking about my eternity & my legacy. I know that I'm saved but I want more than that ... I want to crave Jesus ... I want to be anxious for heaven. Sorry if this is rambling. I started this blog so my friends could know what is going on in my life. Well this is what is going on right now.