In the little things

I did not think that I would have a word that defined my year.  I have never been someone who starts off their year with a word that will define the year or that they will meditate on.  And yet, this year, a word chose me.  That word is obey. 

I talk about obeying all the time to my kids.  All the time, right?  But God has clearly told me and shown me over the last few months that I need to wait and obey.  

I was on the phone with a friend a few of weeks ago and we were past the little talk and onto the real talk.  The talk that says "how is your soul?"  She was sharing with me some encouragement that had been given to her about doing what we do well.  About whatever phase of life that we are in, we are to do it whole-heartedly.  That instantly resonated with the current stirrings of my heart.  

I have been reading through the book of Luke recently and Luke 16:10 says, “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much" and I was convicted.  I was convicted about my attitude of the little things, my obedience in the little things.  
My world right now is in the little things.  I am raising little people, do little tasks for them all day long with often seemingly little outcome.  I am constantly picking up little toys, folding little clothes, putting together little meals to serve little people, answering 1,001 little questions and resolving little problems.  My daily job of mom and wife is made up of activities that are not changing the world, that are not leading the headlines and are not making huge daily impacts.  They are little things.

And yet it is the little things that matter.  God said those faithful with little will be faithful with much.  The little things in our lives need to take priority sometimes in order to make big changes.  We first have to be faithful with the little, in order to receive and be entrusted with much.  All great things start with small steps. 

And while I am simultaneously consumed with the little things, I am going through big things, deployment and more, that requires large amounts of obedience.  Sometimes I think that it is easier to obey in the big things because they are right in front of us and we have to.  It is easier to ignore the small things in our lives, the things that need to changed but are easier to hide or let slide by as acceptable.  Complaining, gossip, judgement, impatience, jealousy, bitterness and more.  In small doses, these things are all viewed as acceptable by most people.  And rarely are you going to confront someone on being too impatient with their kids or spouse or complaining too much about their daily grind.  We just accept these things in our selves and in others quietly, justify our thoughts and actions to ourselves and move on.  BUT little things add up.  Little bad attitudes grow quickly.  Little habits get ingrained fast.  And matters of the heart are not to be taken lightly.  God's word is clear that little wrongs are big to him and his commandments about our words (Psalm 34:13: Keep your lips from evil and your tongue from speaking lies, Ephesians 4:29: do not let unwholesome talk come out of your mouth but only what is helpful in building others up), our attitudes and actions towards others (Romans 12:10 Honor one another above yourselves), and attitudes of the heart (Psalm 51:10: a pure heart, Psalm 15:2: who does what is righteous and speaks truth from the heart) are areas where little changes make big impacts.

And ultimately, that is what my life is right now.  Shaping little hearts.  Everyday I am called on to be the mom to three precious kids.  They rely on me for everything.  And they watch me constantly.  They watch my attitude, they watch my actions, they watch my obedience.  And then they copy it. 

God has called out some very specific things in my life and he is telling me to obey.  Some of those things are everyday choices.  Some things I have to wait.  But through it all, if I want to be faithful with the much that I know he has planned for my future, I need to be faithful in the little that I am in now.  All these little things I do now will shape these kids into big people that will have to choose to live rightly on their own.  And truly, there is nothing I love more than the three littles that I am surrounded by so God's challenge to be an example in obedience with love could not be more important. 

A celebration!

A few weeks ago when the girls turned 3, Brenner's mom was able to come out and be a part of the celebration as well as stay for an entire week!

We had such a great visit and I was able to get a couple great photos with her before she left!

On their birthday, we had two chaplains and families over to dinner and celebrated with cupcakes.

Our friends spoiled them with play-doh, tiaras, and ring pops :)

The day after their birthday was Presidents Day and we headed to Nevada City with Ch. Lowe and Ed for the most beautiful weather and a great family day of exploration.

The Twins turn 3!

My babies are 3!

These two little ones celebrated their birthday today and I don't think I will ever celebrate one of my kids' birthdays where I am not overwhelmed with emotion.  

These two have been such a challenge in so many ways over the last three years and yet they bring so much joy into our lives. 

 I am humbled that God would choose me to be their mom, that he thinks that I can do the best job of rearing them.  It is not an accident that our children are placed in our hands.  God puts each child purposefully into a family.  He thinks that Brenner and I are the best suited parents for Cole, Clara and Elise.  They will teach us and help us learn the hard lessons we need and we will do the same for them.  They will challenge us through them and we will hopefully grow closer to Him as we seek to parent best.  

These two light up our lives, and yet they push me to think deeper about parenting and rely on God for wisdom and strength on hard days.  

They are silly, tenderhearted, loving, and passionate.  I love that they are so similar and so different at the same time.  It is hard to believe that I have only known them for three years because they are pieces of my heart and feel like they have been there forever. 

I love these girls fiercely with my whole heart and look forward to what the year of 3 brings.

Things that I don't want to forget...

In the business of life, the comings and goings of our day to day, it is so easy for me to forget the things that I didn't think I ever would.  

I hate the fact that I will not remember each moment I have with these kiddos. 

I don't want to forget the little things that bring me big joys each day...

like the girls' love for their babies and the way they sway back and forth and rock their hips while singing their babies to sleep....

Like Cole and Elise dancing around my room pretending to be husband and wife....

like Clara Beth keeping chapstick in her pocket ALL the time and when she doesn't have a pocket, using her underwear as a storage facility....

like Cole making forts, rocket ships, boats, air craft carriers, and army base camps out of our sofa cushions every single day......

like these three piling into the power wheels and driving around the house together laughing and laughing after making up from a fight....

like indoor trampolines in tutus and football jerseys....

like little girls wanting to be big girls and big helpers....

like them sleeping in baby positions and me forgetting that they are rapidly turning into little girls....

like big brothers wanting to carry little sisters into the store to be sure they don't get hit by a car....

there are so many things each day, so many phrases and laughs and moments that I cannot remember and cannot document....but I don't want to forget these sweet moments and pray I always take the time to pause and smile when they happen so I remember the joy that they bring me.  While I can't remember it all, I can remember the daily joy if I choose too!

God is good. Always.

Last week we closed on the selling of our house!  

After 2 years of the house being on the market, it finally sold.  

And we are so grateful.  

But we are not grateful just because the house sold.  

We are grateful that God's plan was way better than ours.  

His always is.  

Always.  

We obviously wanted our house to sell as soon as we put in on the market.  We thought we had a plan for what we would do when it sold and we thought that everything would work out perfectly.  

But God knew that he was taking us in a different direction (such as California!) and it was not the right time to move only to have to move again.  

And so we waited.  

Sometimes I was more patient than others because attempting to keep a large house organized and ready for showings with 3 littles running around was pretty impossible.  But God also knew that a mom with 3 littles always needs more practice with being patient :)

So we left our house in Waco unsold as we moved across the country, trusting it would work out.  

Which of course it did.  

God is so good because He knew what we needed and when.  

We are so grateful that His plan is perfect.  

We are grateful the house sold, but we would continue to be grateful that God's plan is good even if it remained unsold.  Because all things have a purpose and a plan.

God has a way of taking our plans that we constantly make and throwing them out the window.  

Anybody else feel that way?

Married while still in college?

Twins?

Major career change?

Move across the country?

I never expected these things and yet each one has resulted in blessings and great growth.  

God is good.  

Always.  

And THAT is why I am grateful.  

And so we now say goodbye to our house. 

Our first house together that we moved into when we got married.  

The house where we brought 3 babies home to. 

The house that was our home for a decade.  

Here is a picture of how the house looked when we moved into it:

I think the house changed as much as we did while we lived in it.  

So long Austin Avenue!

sweet and not so sweet days.

it warms my heart to see them laugh and play together.  i try to remind them that they will be each other's best friends.  some days this is a real challenge because all they seem to do is fight.  

cole does not always like to share with two little destructors....go figure. 

and while we do not make him share all the time, because it is fair for him to have his own uninterrupted time to play sometimes, it is important to express your desires or need for help in a respectful manner, no matter your age.  pushing, kicking and throwing are not optional forms of communication in our house.  

neither is yelling but we all fail at that sometimes. 

some days i feel like i am teaching them well to get along, to share and to show each other love, kindness and honor to each other.  

and some days i feel like a total failure.  like the kids just barely tolerated each other and the day became more about designated time out zones than productive playtime.

however, most days are somewhere in between.  where the kids play together, share and laugh most of the time with moments of crying, fighting or disrespectful words.  

i am trying to take these opportunities to teach.  to be patient. to chose my words carefully so as to mold little minds and hearts on the right way to resolve conflict.  and to show them that conflict WILL come. conflict might hurt or not end in your favor.  but there are ways to deal with it with respect and love.  

and in today's society, i don't think that people are taught those values very much.  

i try to tell my kids, and mostly cole, that his siblings will be his best friends and greatest allies in life.  i feel that way about my own siblings, despite drastically different and strong personalities.  i love to see my kids love each other.  and hope that i can foster that more as they grow up.  

similar, yet different.

one of the most fun things about being a parent is seeing the unique traits in each of your children develop and learning about their own, special personalities.
all three of my kids have different personalities but they have a lot of similarities as well.  as i have mentioned before, all three of our kids share the same love languages.  they all desire to have quality time with us and they love physical touch.  so they want me to be with them, play with them, hold them and love on them all. the. time.
which is awesome if i didn't also have to cook and clean and go places.
but they also have a lot of differences and it is especially interesting to compare the twins.

when we found out we were having twins, i had no idea how similar the girls would be, especially since they are identical.
and while they still have many years ahead of them where we will be able to watch them grow and develop, it is so fun to see them now, side by side, and watching how they handle things and view the world differently.

clara beth was born first, even if it was only by a minute.
and she acts like the first born too.  she is more bossy, the one who tells me when someone is doing something wrong or if something if not the way it is supposed to be, and tries to tell cole and elise what to do.  she points her finger at them and puts elise in timeout.  she is serious about having puzzles put together the right way and stack only the same size legos together.
she loves to carry things around and usually has an object of the day that is her best friend and she won't let go of.  she is a little hesitant of new people and studies people and situations when they are unknown.  and yet, she loves to wave and say hi to strangers...from the safety of my arms at least.

elise is my goofy girl.
she carries things around in her mouth, loves to knock over anything stacked up, especially something that her sister built.  she loves to so silly things to get a laugh, such as eat with her eyes closed or smear yogurt all over herself.  she gets manhandled the most from the other two, probably because she is the smallest, but most of the time she doesn't mind it.  she especially loves to wrestle with cole.  she is also proving to be the most stubborn when it comes to discipline and does not like to go to time out or apologize when she has misbehaved.  

they both are pretty silly and love to show me everything that they do.  they both adore cole and want to play with him all the time.  they both freak out with joy everytime daddy or the dog comes into the room.  they have been slow to talk using real words but LOVE to sing, both songs we all know and will sing together but also making up and singing songs on their own.

i look forward to watching the twins grown up to see if they will grow more alike or different!

the challenge.

y'all these days i am finding that there are a lot of challenges in my life.  

 they are small challenges but i have found that it is the small ones that creep up and eat away at me more than the big ones.  

anyone else like that?

if there is one major thing happening, then i feel able to deal with it better than the many small things that i am trying to juggle right now.  

we move in two months.  

we have a house to sell.

 a house full of things to pack up.

many, many work things for brenner to do.

lots of friends to try to spend time with. 

lots of family to see including a few trips.  

all this on top of trying to spend quality time with each of my children whose love languages are quality time and physical touch.  read: they want to be with me all the time and physically touching me 95% of that time.  

i am not kidding.  

i would also like to go out a couple times and talk to my husband in quiet place about grown up things.  

all this to say that this is a challenge right now.  

it is a challenge to live in the moment and plan for the future.

it is a challenge for me to fight back anxieties about our house not having sold yet and try to keep the house looking good.

i don't want to count down our last days in texas.  i want to enjoy them.

i have accepted the fact that we will not do and see all the people and things that we want before we leave.  it is just not possible.  

so i am trying to enjoy each day with my kiddies and schedule things with friends as much as i can but allowing myself grace when things or days do not go the way i want.  there are no wasted days when there are little minds and hearts to shape.  

i know that there will be new challenges once we move of a whole different kind.

but right now i feel torn and pulled in many ways here.  

 isn't it amazing that God never stops teaching you things?

never?

he is always molding you into something and calling for change in one area after another.  

he is teaching me huge lessons on patience, trust, faithfulness, goodness, grace, worry and love.  

ya know, just a few little things. :)

this week i am praying for a quiet heart and a quiet mouth so that i can hear God speak to me in these times of challenge.  

mothers day.

we visited Brenner while he was on duty in Wichita Falls over Mother's Day weekend.  we had such a good weekend.  air force bases have tons of parks all over so we spent a lot of time playing.  we also ate out 4 times in 2 days, something that we never do because it is basically torture for us, but they did well 3 out of 4 times so overall it was a huge success.  we also discovered a cajun festival downtown and stopped by.  the best part was that you could pay 5 dollars to hold some baby alligators.  i got in line and we were the last ones to get in...and then cole wanted nothing to do with it.  i think he was scared to get in the little pool with yucky water and swimming reptiles....i can't imagine why.

needless to say, i took one for the team and got in with him while brenner tried to take pictures and wrangle the twins.  cole never actually held one and i could hardly get him to touch them.  i held those slimy things for 10 minutes.  elise, on the other hand, when given the chance, loved touching the alligator and was freaking out about trying to do what cole was doing.  my little animal lover!  although reptiles don't count as animals if you ask me.

the funny thing was, when we got out of the pool, cole started getting upset because he didn't want to stop holding the alligators.  then, all the way to dinner he kept telling us how much fun he had holding the alligators.  we kept reminding him that he never held the alligator and i had to force him to touch them but he insisted that he held them all by himself.  

whatevs, kid.  

i was in the brown, disgusting water holding those reptiles for you and don't you forget it. 

its all about making memories for your kids, right?

we had a great mother's day.  i was with my family and that is all that i wanted.  

there are no other kids that i would rather call my own and no other partner in parenting than brenner!

thoughts on motherhood.

i am very selfish. 

since becoming a mom, i have rediscovered how selfish i am. 

i knew that as a human, and therefore a sinner, i was a selfish being.  we struggle with putting our own desires behind those of others our entire lives.  as children, we slowly learn that the world does not revolve around us and it can be a painful experience.  in fact, there are a lot of adults walking around that still don't seem to understand that truth.  but as we grow and mature, we must learn that we are not always priority number one and our own desires, wants, and needs often have to take a backseat. 

enter motherhood. 

selfishness is no longer an option.  

i no longer get to do many of the things that i enjoy doing, like reading books, going to the movies, shopping for myself, sleeping in, and going out to lunch with friends.  sure i do these things occasionally, but they are no longer a regular part of my life because three wee littles ones have entered my life and they are now my number one priority.  

i have to plan their day before i plan mine.  

i have to wake up before they do, feed them, clothe them, play with them, teach them, pray for them, and do many other things for them before i fit in things for myself.  

when you become a mother, you have to learn to let the selfish desires go, otherwise, you are not going to be the kind of mother that god calls you to be.  

but i have also learned that i am selfish when it comes to my kids.  

i sometimes want them all to myself. 

the moments do go by so fast that i don't want to miss out on a singe one.  

i don't want to be gone from them during day but instead want to use each day to make memories for us all and capture teachable moments.  even sending cole to mother's day out is sometimes hard, although he loves it so much.  i want to be as big a part of their lives as i can.  i want to be the biggest influence over them.

i know that there will come a day, when i am no longer needed then way i am now.  it will happen slowly, and in fact, it already is.  

i cannot hold my babies for hours at a time.  they don't look to me for their nourishment anymore.  they don't need to be rocked to sleep during the night.

i am lucky to have three kids who love hugs and kisses and so i get about a thousand of those a day.  

but i know they will only decrease in number with each passing day.  

i will miss the days when cole doesn't want to hold my hand and when they don't want to be held after getting in trouble.  i will miss the days when i can no longer scoop them up and shush away their cries.  

i am selfish in not wanting to miss a moment because i know i will look back in my old age and cling to each precious memory that i have with my babies.  

i know that i need to have open arms with them, to let them fly and grow. 

 to help them discover their individuality and grow into godly adults who desire to love and serve.  

but i just don't want to let them go. 

and i truly do not miss my selfish days of doing things for me.

i don't mind not going out much or going to the movies.

i don't mind not shopping or reading lots of books or taking naps or getting my nails done. 

i am truly trying to embrace motherhood as much as i can.  it is hard and challenging and i love every minute. 

being a mom is more fulfilling than i ever thought it would be.  i thought that it would be hard to give up some things but when i looked at what i would be missing, each time with choice seems obvious.  i feel overwhelmed by the blessings that run around me and i pray that i will not take a day for granted because there is no guarantee that we will get another.  

happy mother's day.