Christmas Portraits = Fail.

Today I was embarrassed by Asher's behavior in public for the first time.

I had a coupon for a $10 photo package from the portrait studio in Babies"R"Us. Usually, I'm not a huge fan of those types of pictures, but decided that wasn't a bad deal for a 5x7, 4 wallets, and a CD. I figured just try it and see if we could end up with a cute Christmas pic.

Asher was so sweet, as he is most of the time, all morning long. He was in a wonderful mood all the way up to the point we sat him down in front of the background at the picture place. Then he lost it, and the next 30+ minutes were spent trying to either keep him in one spot in front of the camera or scrape him off the floor, sobbing. But that wasn't the embarrassing part.

That came when the two ladies working there were sitting on the floor behind the camera, making faces and noises at him and talking to him in an attempt to make him smile. Asher seemed to be more frustrated than amused by them, so I sat down with him in front of the background, trying to talk him into sitting there like a big boy while we took his picture. Then he just stood up, walked over to one of the ladies who was trying to talk to him (who I'm pretty sure was the manager), and smacked her in the face. He immediately knew he was wrong, so before we could even move towards him to grab him, he ran back to us and threw himself down in front of us in a position exactly like this, butt to the camera, crying.

Of course, I spent the rest of the time apologizing and anxious to be done with the experience. Very surprisingly, we did end up with a pictures that weren't too bad, but I think that may have been our first and last time in a picture studio.

[Click HERE to see the pics we ended up with.]

Blueberry Breakfast Bars

Here's a recipe for some breakfast bars I've taken from Dr. Fuhrman and modified a bit to my own version.  They make a great healthy snack!

1 medium-large ripe banana
1 small apple, peeled and finely chopped
2 madjool dates, pitted and finely chopped
1 cup frozen, thawed blueberries
1/4 cup raisins
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
2 tbsp ground or milled flax seeds
1 1/2 tbsp raw sunflower seeds
1 1/2 tbsp finely chopped, raw walnuts
1 tbsp chia seeds
1/8 cup 100% pomegranate juice
olive oil or non-stick spray (if you need to grease pan)

Mash banana in a mixing bowl. Add pomegranate juice, nuts, seeds, and oats.  Mix thoroughly.  Add remaining fruit.  Mix thoroughly.  Press into greased or non-stick 8x8 inch baking pan.  Bake at 350°F for 25-30 minutes.  Cool on wire rack.  Cut into 8 large or 16 small bars.  Store in refrigerator.

At last...

I feel like I now have something interesting (to me, anyways) to blog about.......

Food!

In the last couple months, I've become really interested in food - not just how to prepare it, but the effect it has on our bodies and our health as a whole.  If you've ever heard the phrase "You are what you eat," it's truer than most of us probably realize.  I've been experimenting with recipes from all sorts of diets - some raw, some vegetarian, some vegan, and some with meat and dairy too. What I'm trying to do is to feed our family a diet that is overall high in nutrients, low in bad fats/ sugar/ salt/ etc, that contains as many natural and as few processed ingredients as possible, and, of course, tastes good.  And it's actually been pretty fun!

I've never really enjoyed preparing food before now.  It always seemed so intimidating.  I think preparing homemade baby food for Asher is what first got me interested and experimenting, then I moved on to "regular" food.  I realized it was kind of silly for me to breastfeed Asher for nearly 14 months, give him a super healthy diet of natural ingredients for several months, and then just switch him over to the typical American diet of nutrient-deficient, processed foods.  And while me and Matt's diet wasn't absolutely terrible, it still wasn't that good either.  We weren't just eating everything out of a package or anything - I just wasn't cooking things that were as healthy as they could have been.  We were eating too much meat, starches, breakfast cereals, etc, and not as many vegetables, beans, nuts, and seeds as we should have been.  I knew that as Asher got older, he would want to eat what Matt and I were eating, and that we couldn't force him to eat something that we weren't eating ourselves.  Plus Matt and I want to be healthier for our own good too.

Anyways, the more recipes I've tried that have turned out well (especially when I stray off the path a bit and get creative), the more confidence I've gained in wanting to try more things.  I want to start making posts with some of the successful recipes I've tried, as well as any good natural health/ nutrition related information I come across.  Feel free to comment if you agree, disagree, have something to add, etc!  I'm still pretty new to this, and it's all about researching, learning, and experimenting as I go.  =)

I'll try to get my first recipe on here by the end of the week!

knowledge > feelings

02:00 AM...

This is not how I wanted to start blogging again. But I need to think "out loud" and vent.

It doesn't feel like God is good tonight. I know He is, but I'm having a real hard time with this one. One of my very best friends is going through something no one should have to go through, and I've watched too many similar situations with more than one close friend over the last two years. How many times will I have to tell sit with them in silence or try to tell them God will see them through? Especially when it's a situation where God has majorly blessed me in the same area that they are dealing with so much pain? 

I hate this. 

I know God is good, but it's hard not to think, How could you let this happen? Why them? But then, why anyone? Why do innocent children and "good people" anywhere suffer? Can I doubt God's goodness more when terrible things happen to either me or people close to me than if those same things only fell on those outside my circles? No - God doesn't change. He is good whether our circumstances are or not, whether we feel like He is or not. He shares in our grief and sorrows. 

Right now I feel angry, hurt, questioning, and helpless for my friend.

But I know that God is good, loving, compassionate, merciful, kind, giving, helping, healing, faithful, perfect, comfort, strength, in control.

But I still hate this.

From Psalms 77.

I cry out to God; yes, I shout.
      Oh, that God would listen to me!
All night long I prayed, with hands lifted toward heaven,
      but my soul was not comforted.
I think of God, and I moan,
      overwhelmed with longing for his help.

You don’t let me sleep.
      I am too distressed even to pray!

Has God forgotten to be gracious?
      Has he slammed the door on his compassion?

But then I recall all you have done, O Lord;
      I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago.
They are constantly in my thoughts.
      I cannot stop thinking about your mighty works.

O God, your ways are holy.
      Is there any god as mighty as you?
You are the God of great wonders!
      You demonstrate your awesome power among the nations.

From Lamentations 3.

I will never forget this awful time,
      as I grieve over my loss.
Yet I still dare to hope
      when I remember this:
The faithful love of the Lord never ends.
      His mercies never cease.
Great is his faithfulness;
      his mercies begin afresh each morning.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
      therefore, I will hope in him.”
The Lord is good to those who depend on him,
      to those who search for him.
No one is abandoned
      by the Lord forever.
Though he brings grief, he also shows compassion
      because of the greatness of his unfailing love.
For he does not enjoy hurting people
      or causing them sorrow.

We're back in Maybe-Land... Again.

I'm doing something brave right now... Brave to me, anyways.


I'm going to say that I think God may have just provided a house for us to live in. A wonderful house...

This is how the afternoon went: I picked Matt up and we went to look at the house. The owner, Bethany, greeted us at the door. It turns out that she and her husband, Eli, are missionaries in Africa with their 3 boys. That's why they're moving - to go back to Africa for another three years. That right there was awesome to me. Here I was worried about what kind of people would own the house, and they turn out to be Christians AND missionaries! (If you know my love for missions then you get why this is so extremely cool to me!) We chatted as we looked through the house, but it was getting harder and harder for me to focus on the house itself. All I kept thinking was "how cool would it be to support this missionary family by taking good care of their home for them while they're away..." I was starting to feel like I'd be doing a long-term house sitting more than renting a place! To them it's not just an investment property or something - this is the home they will come back to when they return from Africa.

The only thing we were a little concerned about was that they said "no pets please" and we have Béla. (And Boogie, but in most cases that doesn't seem to apply to things that live in a tank.) I believe that if they say no because of Béla, then it wasn't meant to be, and if it is meant to be, they will allow her.

So now, back to my "brave" declaration. 

If we get it, of course I will continue saying "God is good! Look what He's done!" and if we don't get it I will say "It's not what God has for us right now." I don't think either of these assessments are wrong, but why is it so scary to talk about what God is doing in present tense? 

I guess because hindsight is 20/20. It's easy to look back once something has already happened and say that God did it. It's not so easy to sit there and be like "I believe this is what God is going to do" before it's even happened. If I say that and it doesn't come to pass, do I look like a fool? Should I just keep my mouth shut until I see where things go? Or should I be open to say I believe God is about to do something great? 


I don't know. 


I guess I've never faced this before on such a big scale. Or maybe I have, but I'm just now really thinking about it. What do you think?

Don't worry.

"Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done." Phil 4:6 (NLT)


I needed to read this verse this morning.


As I said in my last post, we've had two houses we've looked at buying fall through. The second cost us around $600 for inspections and everything. We are still sure that God is telling us now is not the time to purchase a house. But over the last week, we've had a strong feeling like we need to be looking for another home, even if it's not one that we own ourselves. I've been looking at other apartments/condos for rent, and the problem I keep running into is this: It seems that the ones we can afford won't fit our stuff, and the ones that will fit our stuff are more than we can afford. It's been frustrating.


To top it off, yesterday I discovered black mold growing out of the air vent in Asher's room. We removed the vent cover, which was absolutely covered in mold, especially on the back side of the vent. When we looked inside the ducts with a flashlight we could see the mold all on the inside of the air ducts... Definitely not healthy, and yes, I did freak out a little. We called the landlord and we're working to get it taken care of asap, but for the meantime the heat/air is shut off, and Asher is sleeping in his play pen in our room. It may be in all of the vents, but it's definitely worse in his, so hopefully he'll be "safer" in our bedroom.


As you can imagine, this also added to the frustration of not finding a new place to live. I've actually really enjoyed living here for the last (almost) three years, and we don't live in a dump by any means, but it is an older building and has it's issues here and there. Mold, however, is not one that I'm willing to just live with. 


Needless to say, my search for a new home was in full swing yesterday, and I will admit I was getting pretty ratcheted up over things. I couldn't find a suitable apartment or condo, and I didn't want to deal with renting a house because of not knowing what kind of landlords we may get, what condition house we could find within our budget, etc. But after not finding an apartment that would work, I started looking. 


Apparently Matt was looking too, because he texted me and told me to look at a house for rent that had caught my eye earlier in the day. I took it as a good sign that we were both interested in the same house on our own, so I called the management company and said we wanted to take a look. The lady called me back around 5:30 yesterday, and we're supposed to go look at it tomorrow afternoon. At this point, it's worth at least looking into.


I'm trying not to worry about this apartment. God knows that we don't have any closets or storage space here, that there's mold in our air vents, etc etc etc. And I'm trying not to worry about whether we'll "get" that house we're going to look at tomorrow. I'm hopeful that this may be the place God has for us to move to, but I'll be honest, I'm also trying not to get my hopes up too much after being let down in that area so many times lately. 


Don't worry about anything. Pray about everything.


I shouldn't worry -  I can sit and list one amazing thing after another that God's done for us, especially over the last year, but yesterday I still gave in to anxiety, and I was a nervous wreck. I don't want to continue that way. He knows what we need before we even knew we needed it, and I can't sit here and ignore everything He's given us already. 


Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done.


So, (raising my glass of orange juice) here's to a productive Thursday - full of thanks and worry-free.  :)

Staying Put

After looking around at different houses over the last several weeks, and even putting offers on two of them, our house hunt is over... For now. Both of our offers ended up falling through. (The first time we were outbid, the second time we backed out after inspections because we couldn't afford the new roof and foundation work the inspector found.)

I want a house at some point, and Matt does too, more than me I think. We want somewhere that Asher can have room to run around and play indoors, as well as a safe place to play outside. I'm not going to lie - I'm bummed it didn't work out. Aside from having a place for Asher, it'd be nice to have a house and be more settled by the time we want to try for another kid. This apartment would be preeeetty cramped if we had to fit both of us, two kids, a dog, and a turtle (in his 55 gal tank).

This morning I read these verses in Ecclesiastes:

"One handful of peaceful repose is better than two fistfuls of worried work - More spitting into the wind." and "There's an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on earth."

I felt like God was telling me two things through these verses: 1) Now is not the right time, but God knows when that is and someday it will come. 2) At this point in time, it is better for us to continue on in our apartment without worry than to take on the worry and work that would probably come with either of the houses we were looking at. They both needed some repair work and updating.

So for now we're just sitting tight, working hard to save what we can and pay off as much school debt as possible, and waiting for God to show us the right time to move. Eventually the time will come.  :)

Keeping Busy

The last two weeks have been nuts!

MLK weekend (which, by the way, marked one year from when we got Bela and found out about our little bun in the oven) we went down to Hilton Head to stay with Grandma for a few days. It went quick, as trips down there usually do. We got to go to church Sunday and see a lot of friends. We also got to meet up with my friend Melissa and her little guy, Caleb, who is about 5 weeks older than Asher. They smiled at each other a lot and seemed to hit it off well. So cute!  :]

The next day after getting home we went to see a foreclosed house we found online, and after a lot of prayer and research, put an offer on it this past Monday evening. It needs a LOT of work/updating, so if they accept our offer we've been looking trying to find good renovation loans. Apparently someone else bid on the house right around when we did, so now we're just waiting to hear back from the bank which of us they're selling it to.

Aside from all that excitement, I've been training to work from home as a typist for a local court reporting company. It's a LOT to learn - more than I actually expected - but I'm having fun. I've got a thick book of grammar rules, a style guide which includes exceptions to those grammar rules, glossary of legal terms, etc., and new software to get used to, but it's going well. (I think! haha) This Saturday I have to attend "Typist Boot Camp" all day at their office, and after that I should be ready to start accepting some easy jobs. It's not the highest paying profession, and it's only part-time, but it will be good to be bringing in a little extra money without having to leave Asher at all. I will do whatever it takes to be able to stay home with my little man!

So please pray for the house - that if it's where God wants us it will work out, and that if it's not, it won't. And please pray that I won't get overwhelmed with all this typing stuff and that I'll catch on and at least be able to make a little money with this job!

:)

Some Thoughts on Parenting

Sometimes I get scared when I start to think too much. I know that parents have always had their challenges, but it seems like our culture goes so against what God says in a lot of ways, and it's going to be extra difficult to teach him and any other children we may have to go against the flow and live for Jesus. I know that one of the best ways for us to teach him to do that is to lead by example, and that fact is hitting me hard lately. It's really challenged me to examine not only what I do, but also my motives for doing it. For example, will Asher see his mom and dad going to church because it's "the right thing" or "what good people do", or will he see us excited to go worship the God he can see we're wildly in love with, alongside others who are there for the same reason?

Every day with Asher is different than the one before. Every day he gets a little more aware of his surroundings and what's going on, a little better at grabbing/ holding things in his hands, babbles using a few more sounds, etc. I know that's completely normal, but it's still amazing to watch. I'm always in awe when I stop to think that something so complex as a little human could come from what seems like almost nothing, and that it can continue to grow and thrive so well only eating milk that comes out of me. Crazy! It just reminds me that the way God has designed things is absolutely amazing and man will never be able to replicate it.

I know that as he grows he is also learning so much more than motor skills and how to talk. He is picking up on how Matt and I treat each other, how to try and get his way with what he wants, and his overall place in the family, even now at 3 months old. Very soon he will also be learning how to treat others outside our family, and how to interact with many different people in different situations. Matt and I hope that the example we set will teach him to treat us and others with love and respect, and that he will never doubt how much we love him and how much God loves him. That's key - it's one thing to know your family loves you to the moon and back, but what a comfort it is to go through life knowing that the God of the entire universe loves you so much that he created you, pursues you, died for you, and will never, ever leave you.

I hear Asher waking up from his nap now... So thus concludes my random thoughts on being a parent for today.