Watch out world!

In John 10:10 Jesus tells us that "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

I came across this scripture today and boy does it encompass Hunter!  If it is one thing he does is live life to the fullest and utmost passion!  When he does something he is all in...from playing, to making friends, to talking to everyone and ANYONE in the grocery store, to loving and crying!  When Hunter is happy he is HAPPY and when he is mad he is MAD!  He has a huge heart and boy does he catch on quickly to most everything.  As exhausting as it is sometimes with a very high maintenance little booger like Hunter.  I will tell you this...this little guy is going to be fantastic one day at whatever he becomes...because to me he is just simply exceptional!  With God beside him watch out world!

In his own time!

I want to go back at least a good ten years when I began praying...praying hard EVERYDAY that God would bless me with a child. Days went by....years went by...my faith shaken, my soul aching it just wasn't happening.  I had no idea why God wasn't listening to me!  I had to ask myself all kinds of questions...was I praying wrong?  Should I not pray for a child at all?  I did change the way I prayed and I just started asking for God to do his will in my life, whatever that may or may not be.  I also prayed for God to take the longing from my heart if I wasn't supposed to be a mother.  Believe it or not I was at peace with where I was in my life.  Accepting if you will that I was not going to have children of my own.  I suffered the miscarriages...I suffered the doctors saying it would not happen for me.  But the longing never ever changed.  So here I am three years later at 11 pm decorating my house with Batman decor for the most adorable three year old boy.  I can't believe where life has taken me!  I can't believe that all those years I was heartbroken I should have just been still!  I know God hears all prayers of all kinds in all different ways.  And I can tell you he heard and answered mine...IN HIS TIME...IN HIS PERFECT TIME!  I am the mom I want to be, and the wife I want to be and he knew when to place it all in my life!  So for anyone whose faith is shaken, for anyone who questions God.  Please have faith that with him all things are possible.  My Hunter is proof of miracles and the light of my life!  Happy Birthday my sweet boy, your mama loves you more than you will ever know!

Toilette Connoisseur!

That's my Hunter!  The toilette connoisseur. And No, it's not just tinkle and get the heck out of Dodge. It's me being trapped in a stinky, tile-laden prison while Mr. Truck Driver curls up with a magazine to do his daily duty.  Hey, I'm not kidding. He has an affinity for public restrooms. Restaurants, department stores, you name it. And this boy is picky....the restroom has to be just right.  At least he has some discriminating taste, right?  I mean how many little boys do you know that walk into a public restroom go straight to the potty to check out its cleanliness?  I just sit there and pray "Dear God please let this toilet be clean..please I just don't have the energy to make a mad dash to another location!"

  So here's Hunter armed with his toilet paper that has to have soap on it to clean any pee pee he sees before he will think about sitting on the potty.  But yesterday topped the cake.  He had to poopoo BAD!  So bad in fact that on the way to the bathroom he was holding his hiney going " oh oh huh oh huh!"  I wondered if we would make it.  AND THERE IT IS IN THE POTTY a poopoo stain.  I knew it was over...I knew I was going to make the run to a new location.  I knew he would never sit on a potty with poopoo stains even if I flushed it really good.  "And he sees it and says "Whats that...someone's poo poo?" And before I could do or say anything he goes making a dash for the door.  And let me tell u I was not going on the search for a clean potty at a different place so here we go....yes it's the men's room indeed!  Thank goodness the men's room was clean and we had success!  Which is another blog at another time as to why women can't clean up after themselves!!!!

So if any of you have little ones I thought I would help you out with a ratings system of public restrooms in the area. God knows we visited nearly every one.

Target family bathroom: 3 stars (usually peepee on the seat but overall clean)
TJ Max : 1 stars (filthy)
Kohls: 5 stars (clean and has a little potty which to Hunter is fabulous...our favorite!!!)
Trader Joes: 3 stars (a little dangerous cause people always leave the spray too low and from experience tastes awful and stool is rickety)
Food Lion: 0 stars (public health hazard!)

List goes on but blog time is over my kids are destroying our home.

So for all the potty training mamas I can continue updating this list.  And tell you what I have learned...always always carry Clorox wipes.  Always be prepared to use the men's room if necessary..lol!  Always carry a good book sometimes poopoo is a day long adventure!  Always be prepared to visit many locations before the deed is completed if your child has OCD like mine.  And always enjoy it cause before you know it they won't need your help .....they grow up so so fast!

Sent from my iP

Perspective!

Last night I received a text from my neighbor about a friends little boy who needs a heart immediately or he wouldn't make it through the night.  As I write this I am still unsure if lil mike is doing ok this morning.  But what I can tell you is this....  I am not happy with myself for being so frustrated yesterday with my kids.  You see they were not doing any thing but being kids.  But because I was so busy trying to get ready to go to the beach each bad thing they did was multiplied x 1,000 due to my urgency about the tasks at hand.  Each day we seem to forget when we wake up this could be my last day, or my husbands, or my children's.  I don't want to regret a last day!  Last night after that text I will say I prayed to God for a miracle for LIL MIKE and for all of us out there that need a reminder that we must live each day as it were our last.  Our GOD is big and his hands are around this family.  May he also have his hands on all of our lives and remind us to cherish each second!  Hug you children a little tighter!  Kiss your husband a little longer.  I did and I won't have any regrets today!

For months I have been up all night with my babies who are having their own very different issues at night. Dan looked at me and said Kelly I will take the first shift please go get some sleep.  I just love how he knew exactly what I needed at that particular moment.  I fell more in love with him and our life in that moment. I got some great sleep...only being about three hours but a block of sleep none the less was great for me and my soul.  1:30 found us camped out in the living room with our 7 month old while we finished watching a show. I looked at Dan watching TV  and I thought to myself  “Is this really our life? Are we really this lucky?”  2am found us all in our beds..I use that term lightly since my bed seems to be wherever I can grab a few minutes sleep.  Before I knew it, it was 7am and the entire house was up for the day. 3 hours, by the way, is a nap…. not a night’s sleep.

Dan left for work and I settled in for what I was sure would be a long day. An hour into the day I paused to take note of my life. I was sitting on the couch with a crying toddler in my left arm, and my little baby on the other arm just wanting the couch to swallow me or praying they would just be as tired as me and go back to sleep.  We watched Sesame Street continuously, still in our pajamas and I’d yet to brush my teeth. I hadn’t experienced a single 10 minute block of time that didn’t contain crying or whining and for once I was completely calm. More than being calm, I was at peace.  And then it all came to me this is how I am serving God.  I’m not entirely sure why I had that clarity, because God knows I don’t live my days with it. But, then, for that moment, I had it.  This was his intention for me.  I am not supposed to be a doctor or lawyer or leader of the free world.  I am supposed to be the mom of Hunter and Ryder.

This is my life.

This ....uncertainty of a night’s sleep. The juggle of two kids.  The way my heart melts with love for my babies. The way my heart expands to depths previously unimagined cuddling with my children. The days spent at home with the babies while Dan earns a living for our family. The late night feedings. All of it. Two children crying at the same time. Adapting a “divide and conquer” mentality with Dan.  Looking at Dan sometimes and smiling in the middle of a toddler "crisis" almost wanting to giggle because i can remember the days I never thought I would get to experience such a thing. It’s spontaneous trips because we love to get away!  It’s patience when I’d rather yell at a toddler who has been whining for the past hour. It’s yelling when I wish I had patience for my toddler who has been whining for the past hour. It’s success and it’s failure and every conceivable point in between. It’s stealing kisses from my baby who has the prettiest baby grin in the world.   It’s ear infections, fevers, snotty noses.  It’s hearing mama 5,000 times before 8 am.

This is where i am supposed to be right now, and I think I’m finally beginning to really accept it.

It was the peace that took me by surprise sitting there on the couch.  A few months ago, peace wouldn’t be anywhere close to how I would describe motherhood. Days like yesterday would reduce me to tears in a second. And, while I’m not saying that I’ll never be reduced to tears again {hello, reality} it does feel nice to be at peace in the middle of chaos. I think I struggled consciously and subconsciously for a while with the difference between where I was and where I used to be. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I found my rhythm as a mom and as a stay-at-home mom but there was always just something that seemed to still be “off”. I know why, I did a ton of massive life changes in the last 6 years and it just took some time for my identity to catch up to my reality.

I really love my life right now....I mean today...lol you know as a mom sometimes things change!

Oh and I leave for the beach in 4 days...that helps!!!

Ephiany turned frenzy I must catch up!

I started a blog in 2011..mainly just for me to go and journal my day to day.  Well you can see how we'll I did with that.  In my almost 40 years (streak omg almost 40) I have reconciled to the fact that I am poor at follow through.  So last night I got some sleep...if you know anything about my life right now, sleep has been non-existent for the last 3 years, and as of lately sleeping more than an hour here and there is what my norm is.  But last night my friends I slept a full 3 hours in a row and this has given me a renewed strength and an outlook that this run down mama has not had in months!  I woke up and felt nicer, and I didn't feel the need to call the doctor and ask for antipsychotic medication.  I felt like oh my gosh today I am gonna be the best mom ever, I am gonna re-start my blog so that I don't forget a minute of my spectacular life, I am going to write down every little thing my kids do as I don't want to forget a minute.  So that brings me to now, I want to share what my day is like as a stay at home mom of two wonderful boys.  I want to be real and raw because not everyday is easy in hopes that others moms I know can relate and see YOU are not the only one who wakes up feeling crazy and wondering how in the world you can make it through another day without adult conversations.  And I also thought this would be a cool thing for my kids to read one day when I am old and don't make any sense.  So cheers to a mama who got a little sleep which apparently is the best medicine for being who and what I want and need to be.

Also blogging really doesn't fit into my schedule and neither does being grammatically correct as I am most likely blogging as my kids are disassembling our home.  Accept my apologies ahead of time for run on sentences, missing commas and misspelled words for I need much more sleep for all that!