Fun Day Trip





Los Angeles

Today was such a fun day. Jarrell worked a long weekend, so we took an extra day off this week. A friend of Jarrell's, named Blaire, from North Carolina had recently moved to LA so we went out to visit her. On the way, I had my first pumpkin spice latte of the season and it was absolutely delicious. It made me feel like fall is just around the corner.

We met Blaire at The Grove and headed to The Cheesecake Factory for lunch. I have never actually had a good experienec at The Cheesecake Factory, so I was a little weary, but it ended up being wonderful. I had an amazing Chinese Chicken Salad for lunch, which was massive. The kids actually behaved fairly well, minus a pretty entertaining/embarassing moment by Emery. The restaurant had two levels and we were seated at the top next to the edge where the escalator brought people up. Emery thought it would be a good idea to throw the pepper shaker over the side and it dropped 20-30 feet down. Luckily, no one was on the escalator. The pepper shaker rode it's way back up the escalator and rejoined our table thanks to a kind hostess. Needeless to say, we moved Emery after that!

There is an amazing candy store that stared in New York called Dylan's Candy Bar and much to  my delight they opened one at The Grove a couple weeks ago, so we had to stop in. The kids ended up getting suckers that were about as big as their faces. It is always so fun to spoil your kids a little.

The kids with their suckers watching the water fountain.

On the way home the kids were so cute. Emery and Moses kept tapping their suckers together and screaming, "Clink" while giggling. (If you have ever seen Despicable Me you will understand this) After a while, Emery fell asleep but kept waking her up. Moses grabbed her hand and said,"It is okay Emery, I am right here." It was the sweetest thing. He is such a good big brother and I love watching them interact together. Nothing makes me happier than my family and I am so incredibly blessed by them.

Moses comforting Emery

 

Mini Golf Fun

The other day Moses was watching an episode of Curious George in which George went miniature golfing with his friends. Moses was very interested with the concept, so today we took him to the miniature golf course at the camp we work at. It was such a beautiful day and a wonderful way to spend time together as a family. Mimi was not interested at all but she had fun twirling around in her skirt, making gardens in the forest, and cuddling with me on the benches. Overall, I would say it was a success. They were out of score cards so Jarrell and I decided to keep score by hole...I destroyed him. Seriously, 7-1 (we didn't count the wholes we tied on).

The kids in action. The phone on my camera takes the worst pictures, so sorry about the quality. Emery hasn't taken off her tutu since yesterday. She paired it with a Dora shirt today, that totally didn't match, and called herself a Dora Princess. I absolutely love how girly she is, but how tough she is as well. 

A Glimpse of God's Heart

I ran back into the store and found her this
cute play tutu in hopes of making her smile.

One of the smallest events of our day spoke to me in such a deep way that I haven't been able to keep my mind off of it. Before church we had to pick up wipes and the best place to do it in the area was the 99 Cent Store. This particular one has two coin operated rides out front and immediately the kids were begging me to ride them. I was in a hurry, but told them if the behaved really well in the store that they would be able to go. In the checkout line I exchanged a dollar for quarters and Emery's face lit up. She exclaimed, "I am so excited!" Her face was beaming and she kept clapping and squealing with excitement as she approached the horse. I put Moses on a rocket ship first while Emery carefully selected the horse she wanted to ride on. I walked over and put in my last two quarters and the machine didn't work. My heart sank because I knew how excited Emery was. I ran her over to finish out Moses' ride with him, but she was so disappointed.

Trust me, I know not being able to ride a horse at the store is not a big deal, but it started the thought process. This made me begin to think about the future and the disappointments and potential hardships my children could face. I know there are going to be so many things in this life that I will not be able to control or protect my children from and that is hard. My focus automatically shifted from my fears with my children to God's heart.

So often we see injustice in this world and it breaks our hearts. Sometimes it causes us to question God and His goodness. It causes us to become bitter and hopeless. I remember when I did ministry in the inner city with a friend and being completely broken about the circumstances of the people, especially the kids, that lived there. I remember yelling at God the whole way home with tears streaming down my face. I blamed Him for the terrible things in the world. While I did have a righteous anger, it was directed in the wrong place. As a parent, I have come to better understand God's heart for all His children. Trust me, if the disappointment in my child's face breaks my heart, I can't imagine how the huge injustices of our world break God's heart. We are talking about someone who sent His son to die for us, so that He could be in relationship with us. Trust me, he doesn't take sin, whether our own sin or the sin against us, lightly. He doesn't ignore our tears, it says in Psalm 56:8 "You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book."

With that being said friends, God knows your present and past pain. It breaks His heart as much, if not more, than it breaks your own. He is the only person who can fully comprehend and understand. So whatever may be causing you to doubt his goodness, submit it to Him. Nothing is too big for Him.

Random Rainy Day Thoughts

I am sitting in my office (which for anyone who knows how often I am actually in my office, that this is a miracle) doing neverending amounts of paperwork. I have a million end month reports due by the 5th of Septmeber and for some reason unknown to me, even though we live in a technoligical society, 75% of my reports have to be done by hand. It is pouring down rain so it is kind of the perfect day to do reports because I don't want to go anywhere, anyway.

Since I have been doing paperwork all day, I have been doing a lot of thinking. Some important things, but mainly just random thoughts, so I thought I'd share them with you all (plus I need a break from what I am doing):

 As most of you know, I live in a tiny mountain community. Mountains usually come with some sort of wildlife and that is true of where I live. There are deer, bears, raccoons, mountain lions, bobcats, etc. Since a lot of the mentioned animals are predators, most people have inside pets. So this leaves me with this question...Why does someone that lives behind my house have a ROOSTER? Last time I checked, most people that live in the mountains do not have farms or a need for a rooster, especially one that wakes me up at 5am! This poor little guy may soon lose it's life to an angry bear/ person.

I absolutely can not stand pregnancy pants. I know people that love them and think that they are the most comfortable thing in the world, not me. I have only ever had one pair that I actually like and of course they ripped in an inappropriate place. They never fit well, they stretch out, and they fall down. Maybe one day I will make a line of affordable, cute, well-fitting pregnancy clothes.

Look at my cute little blessings.

Naming a child would be a whole lot easier if there were not two people involved in the process. Especially if one is really stubborn. Enough said.

I recently heard that you shouldn't think about raising kids as a duty or responsibility but that you need to think of it as managing a blessing. Sometimes managing blessings can be really hard.

Sometimes certain situations can be so overwhelming and discouraging. I have been experiencing something like that lately and when it seems like it can't get worse, I end up getting more bad news. Today I had a major realization...just laugh about. So the two other times I got more bad news, I laughed. It feels a lot better.

I never liked Coca-Cola. As soon as I finished delivering Moses, they asked me what I wanted to drink and I replied, "Coke." I continued to love it for a couple months after he was born but went back to not liking it until I had Emery (and for a couple months following) and now this baby. How weird is that? Today I drank a Coke and I loved it.

I am currently taking medication for a horrible sinus infection, but am in the midst of trying to decide if the sinus infection is as bad as the side effects of the medicine. (I would share them with you but you don't want to know.)

Weekend Recap

So we had a great weekend off that was fun, yet interesting at the same time. We live in a small tiny mountain community. Most people use electricity to heat their houses, but up here it is propane. Since we haven't turned on our heat since March, we haven't really been watching our propane levels closely, or at all. The other night my children decided that they were going to McDonald's for dinner and even had their orders ready...I gave in. I had a long day at work, so I figure why not? (Don't judge me)  I am not a fan of McDonalds so I didn't get anything. (Mind you, our tiny mountain community is 20 minutes from anything else and we do not have a grocery store). I came home to cook a fabolous Chicken Parmesean meal for Jarrell and I. I got out all the ingredients and went to turn on the stove. All I hear is click, click, click... We ran out of propane. The people couldn't come until today. That means a lot of take out meals and no hot showers. Let me say this, after taking a couple of cold showers, I am extremely grateful for hot showers and will never take one for granted again.

Sunday was a pretty relaxing day of church and having some friends over for a microwave dinner (you have to get creative when you don't have an oven) and a movie. On Monday morning, I had a doctor's appointment. I was looking forward to this appointment because the past two weeks I've had a lot of testing done for different things like high blood pressure and a risk of gestational diabetes. Luckily, my body has seemed to figure everything out and my pregnancy appears to be back to normal.

After my appointment we headed to Disneyland. The kids were really excited and barely made it through my doctor's appointment. I can imagine when you are 2 and 3 and waiting to go to Disneyland, time goes incredibly slow. I had to mentally prepare myself to have a good attitude about Disneyland. I knew that it was going to be hot (it was 90 degrees), that it would be busier than I wanted it to be, that I would get tired from all the walking and that we were going to have to stay longer because of traffic timing. I am so happy that we went, because the kids had a blast. It is so crazy to me because we have gone so many times, but we always have a different experience. This time Moses was really into everything going on around him, and Emery met Donald Duck for the first time (who is her FAVORITE character).



 

The kids favorite thing at Disneyland. The show has only changed once in 2 1/2 years, but they love it the same each time.

 

 

 Meeting Jake, the Neverland Pirate.

 

My little Monster with the rest of the Monsters.

 

My favorite picture of the day. Emery was so happy and offered to share a Grahm Cracker with Donald. She kept kissing his beak over and over again.

 

Moses on one of the new rides at Cars Land. We were a little disappointed, because this is the only ride he was tall enough to get on. (There were lots of tears involved)



After Summer Plans

Summer is by far Jarrell and I's busiest season at work, which makes it really hard to enjoy all the normal things that other people do in the summer. (Which is one of the reason's that I haven't blogged in FOREVER) While I love my job and the summer season, I am happy that it has slowed down signficantly. With that being said, we are trying to jam in as many summer activities as we can before it cools down and before Baby #3 comes.

Speaking of Baby #3, we still do not have a name! Jarrell and I can not agree on a name. I love the name Berkeley and he loves the name Eleanor (really?!) I also have a list of other names that I like but he doesn't like any of them. She is coming in 8 weeks, which I can't belive! I really hope that we can figure out a name for Baby Girl, I really want to start being able to call her by her name when I talk about her. This is a picture of me at 31 weeks pregnant:



 

So back to our post-summer agenda...Last weekend we stayed the night in Santa Monica with one of our dearest friends and took the kids to the beach in the morning. They both absolutely love the ocean, and despite the fact that we don't live far, we have maybe gone 10 times in the three years that we have lived here, how crazy is that? Here are some pictures from our time:

 

 

 

Next on the list is Disneyland. Our passes have been blocked out for the summer, so we haven't been in months. Earlier this morning Emery was really sad that I was going to work. I told her not to worry becasue mommy would be home Sunday and Monday. She responded by saying, "Go to Disneyland?" How can you say no to that? I have a doctor's appointment Monday morning, so we plan on going right after that. Since the last time we have gone, they opened Car's Land, which I know Moses is going to love! Outside of that, we don't actually have any plans, but I am sure we will think of plenty of things to do like another trip to the beach, a day in Big Bear, and Sea World. 

This Is Me Being Honest

My thoughts are really jumbled, as will this post be as well. It is pretty late (at least for a pregnant lady like me) and I can't sleep because my mind seems to be racing. This will be a very honest post, in which I am not trying to cover up anything, so I apologize if at times it may seem negative, but it is where I currently am right now. Sometimes writing is the only way I can clear my head, thus move on (and sleep).

I am emotional but not in a hormonal way. I have been reflecting a lot on my summer, which in my world really means the beginning of May to current and can't help but feel discouraged. I really love the people in my life. I feel a great level of responsibility for those connected to me. Right now I am in a season where I have absolutely zero to give, and since every area of life is so relational, I feel like I am not doing anything well. I am struggling to be a good daughter, sister, friend, mother, wife, boss, leader,    mentor, co-worker, etc and it disappoints me. I am not able to give anyone my best and am constantly finding myself becoming impatient, distant, irrational, insensitive, and annoyed. These are not words that I would generally use to describe myself and it is tough.

This has lead me to realize that I have unreasonable expectations on myself and in some ways, have created a lack of boundaries in my life, that lead me to being unhealthy. I have a really hard time expressing what I need, or don't need, so I often push those things aside and try to do what is best for everyone else. 

The biggest realization I have had though, is how much I try to depend on myself, my own strength and it is no wonder why I fail. We were never meant to go through this life apart from God. I need Him. I need to do things in His strength. I need to find rest in Him. I need to trust Him more with the people in my life. My prayer through this rough season, is that regardless of my ability to be fully present with those around me, that God would still use me. That He will give me the strength. That He will give me the wisdom in my time and priorities. That He would allow me to give others the grace that He has given me. That He would have others show me grace as well. That He would help me to find rest in Him.