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. 

Lazy Saturday

Today has been such a great day already. It has been a perfect mix of relaxation and productivity. I completely understand why God created a day for rest, because we absolutely NEED it. (I know that some people believe different things regarding the day, the purpose, whether it is still valid, etc. but I am not wanting to get into all of that on my blog). 

This morning I let Jarrell sleep in and tackled baby duty by myself. After he woke up, he let me go back to bed. It was so delightful. Let me tell you, being pregnant, plus working, plus baby chasing, plus extreme heat makes for one tired mama. I woke up to lots of laughing so I thought I would see what was going on. Jarrell had invented this imaginary game where the kids made birthday cakes, cooked them, sang happy birthday, blew out the candles, ate the cakes, and opened presents.  The kids loved it. I sat back, with a party hat on of course, as they went through the whole process for my birthday. Honestly, it is moments like these that I love Jarrell even more. I am not very creative, so I love that he interacts with our kids in these ways. He even made it educational. (As the cakes were cooking they had to count the time until they were ready.) 

For Father's Day, I decided to buy a new camera that not only takes pictures, but also video. We finally received it in the mail (which is a whole different story) and I am so happy with how much he loves it and the quality of pictures and videos it takes. It literally was worth every penny. A coworker is teaching Jarrell some things about photography and he is definitely really excited about it. This is a picture I took of Mimi. 

The last great thing about today so far, came from Jarrell too. He needed to weed eat the yard but couldn't find his safety goggles or his sunglasses. I looked out the window and he was wearing Mimi's polka-dot Hello Kitty baby glasses. I almost took a picture, but figured he would kill me, so I thought I would share it with all of you instead :) I am looking forward to the rest of the day and hope that your day is just as amazing as mine.

All the Small Things

I was reminded today how incredibly blessed I am. It wasn't some big grand revelation, it just became apparent in the really small things.

In terms of being incredibly blessed...I had today off. I love days off because that means family time. We didn't really do a whole lot, but those always end up being the most special days. Moses woke up from his nap and crawled up on my lap and cuddled with me for about a half an hour. I couldn't help but smile the whole time. He is growing up so fast and I know these are the moments that I will cherish forever, so I just let it soak in. Moses doesn't always listen and is bad sometimes, but he really is a sweet little boy who is sensitive towards his own feelings and the feelings of others.


Earlier in the day, I watched Mimi play with her baby doll Mickey Mouse. She got out the baby bath tub and bathed him, gave him a snack, got him some water, tucked him into bed, and sang to him. It was nothing incredible, but it just reminded me that she watches everything that I do. That she repeats the things that I do. That all the small things do matter to her whether or not I feel appreciated in the moment. If they didn't, she wouldn't model that level of care for Mickey.

The most favorite part of my day was watching Jarrell play with the kids. He is such a good father and has such a special relationship with the kids. He gets down on their level and is goofy. I am so thankful for such an amazing husband and father for my babies. I don't know how much basketball you all watch, but we watch a lot of basketball in our house. During the NBA finals this trend called Geek Chic was extremely apparent in all of the players. Moses and Jarrell were taking Geek Chic pictures today and they were cracking me up.

Later in the day we were able to catch up with a close friend who is incredibly special to me. I was so thankful for the opportunity to spend some time with her and watch the kids play. Like I said before, it was nothing too extraordinary but it filled my heart.

Flavors of the Week

This week was extremely busy but filled with many wonderful things the highlights were:

#1- Finding out the sex of our baby and having such a fun gender reveal party. I won't show pictures since I already did a blog post, if you missed it you can read here.

#2- I absolutely love trying new things. A couple of friends and I got thai food earlier this week and followed it up with Boba Tea. I have seen these places, but never have tried it. I am still undecided whether or not I am a fan, but it was still a fun experience. We also ate Mochi. I had Green Tea and Moses devoured a Passion Fruit. He decided to move on to mine and took a massive bite out of it. A couple seconds later it came back out and he said, "Yuck, this taste like salad." Even though I was frustrated that he spit the food all over the table, I couldn't help but laugh.

#3- I absolutely love summer and being near water. The other morning we went and bought a bunch of fun toys to bring to the beach. Moses had so much fun with his big shovel. We were not supposed to swim but Mimi decided to drop face first into the water with all her clothes on :)

#4-The kids have been begging to go to Afro Circus aka Madagascar 3 since they first saw the previews for it. We took them and they loved it ( I thought it was a little weird) but they were happy.

#5-My summer team for work came in this week. They are a great group of people and we have already had so much fun with team building, sky trails, and lots of games. All of them already hold a special place in my heart and I know that is going to be an awesome summer.

I hope you all had amazing weeks filled with special memories.

The Big Reveal

Since we know this will be our last child, we decided we wanted to have a fun party to let everyone know what Baby Peak #3 was going to be. We did a reveal cake with Emery, which was super cute, but we wanted to make this all about the baby. I decided to go with the theme, "A Little Bird Told Me It's A..."

Here is the party in pictures:

As they guests came in we had them vote whether they thought it would be a girl or boy. The present to the right contains the information!

Most of the decorations were pink and blue birds of some type. 

A co-worker runs her own bakery business and she made me these adorable pink & blue cookie pops. (Think cake pop, but instead of cake a cookie on a stick). They were sugar cookies with white chocolate frosting and they were amazing.

All the foods we served were things that I have craved during this pregnancy! So above you will see Cherry Limeade with Sprite Zero. Seriously, there isn't a Sonic close, but now I know all I need to do is hit up Liz's house :)

The menu was probably a little wacky for everyone else, but perfect for me. There were cheese & crackers, bagels with vegetable cream cheese, hummus with flat bread and carrots, Asian salad, apples (I forgot the caramel), and red velvet cupcakes.

Moses thought he was having a sister.

Beautiful girls.

Team Blue (minus Emery)

Team Pink (everyone knew I wanted a boy)

We wanted Moses & Emery to be the ones that announced the news to everyone, so we let them unwrap the present. 

Baby girl outfits!

I am so thankful for all the love and support and wish that our families could have been with us. 

Runway All-Stars

Jarrell is out tonight so I was flipping through the DVR looking for something to watch and guess what I found?! Project Runway All Stars. I didn't even know this show existed but my DVR recorded it because it said Project Runway. At first I was skeptical because reunion  all-star shows aren't really my thing. Despite the host, the show is actually really great. Also, my favorite Project Runway designer, Mondo, is on the show. I fell in love with his designs and him as a person during his season. Tonight he said the funniest thing about another contestant's dress. She had streamers on her dress and he said, "It reminds me of Easter at a Mexican families house. It looks like a pinata. I hope her model is full of candy." I couldn't stop laughing about this.

During the show I was inspired to write a fashion post. I hope to do this at least once a week but definitely every other week. I really miss writing the fashion portion of Being True, so I decided I would incorporate that into my personal blog. We will be touching on two different trends tonight. 

#1- The high/low hem. If you are anything like me, you started seeing these all towards the end of last summer (mostly in the form of shirts). It is so true that fashion cycles around. I remember my first high/low hem piece, it was a dress. Do you ever have those moments when you look back at things that you used to wear and were like, "What was I thinking?! That would be this dress. The cut was amazing BUT it looked like someones Easter M&M's melted all over my dress. It was a pastel-swirled mess. Anyway, as far as I can tell the high/low hem will be around all spring/summer. I have already seen it in stores everywhere. I personally feel like it stands out most when it is a high/low skirt or dress. They have a tribal one at Target right now that I love. 

Here is a cute example from Free People Image

#2- Two Toned Lipstick. This is a really fun, bold take on make-up. I am not really a make-up person, but if I was you would see me doing this. Basically, you put one color of lipstick on top and a different color on the bottom. 

Image

What do you think about these styles? Have you tried them? Will you try them?

Carpe Diem

Days off of work are my absolute favorite. I love unscheduled days. They seem to carry a sense of endless possibilities with them. These are the days that I get to take my babies on adventures, cuddle them more, cook with them, and devote all my energy to them (and Jarrell). Today was one of those perfect days. 

At the risk of sounding like an irresponsible parent, I totally forgot to schedule Emery's 15 month and 18 month checkups. To my defense, the kids' pediatrician is weird about scheduling out appointments too far in advance and they don't send reminders, they expect you to remember to schedule them. Crazy right?! Anyway, today was the day for Emery's 15/18 month checkup combined (at 19 months). She is developing wonderfully and the pediatrician said, "There is nothing bad to say about this girl." He also affirmed our parenting, which is always a blessing. The funniest part of the appointment was seeing how much Emery weighs. She is now only 2 pounds less then Moses! Emery had to get several shots so we stopped at Target on our way home to pick up some pain reliever. 

Emery at Elmo's Bay of Play at SeaWorld on Christmas Day.

I am constantly looking for good deals and it annoys Jarrell because I always have to check the sales racks. (even if I looked at them the previous day) I scored some pretty awesome things though. The biggest deal was a insert for potty training that was Sesame Street themed at 50% off. Since Emery is obsessed with Elmo right now, I was hoping we could use this to springboard into potty training. I think it kind of worked. She hasn't used the potty yet, but she keeps saying, "Elmo pee." She has spent a lot of time on there today and really likes to put toilet paper into the toilet. We never really pushed Moses or used a method for potty training, so I think that is what we will do for Emery too. 

After we came home and conquered meal time and naps (anyone with two babies knows this is a huge accomplishment) we had a lot of fun playing outside. We have two outside play cars. One of them is a little coupe that you sit in and push with your feet and the other is basically a car shaped push wagon. Moses would start at one end of the porch and I would start at the other with Emery in the car wagon. We would run towards each other and crash. The kids laughed hysterically each time. It was wonderful! We came inside and had some snacks and I even treated myself to my favorite ice cream. 

Thanks for sharing in my day and I hope that you had a wonderful start to your week. What are some of your favorite activities on your days off?