A bigger Vision!

Sometimes we are inspired by friends in ways we never thought we would be. Until recently, my opinion of helping those in need was a little narrower than it is now. I used to think that it was kind of silly to spend so much time, money and effort in third world countries when we had SO MANY people in need here in our own communities. Then Jessica gave me a different view point on it, as did my Pastor. Jessica pointed out that even though we have homeless people, and hungry people, in general they are not starving to death here in America. Third world countries around the world have people starving to death, dying of disease from drinking the only water they have available AFTER they walked 5 miles a day to get to that contaminated water. They are living in conditions that we don’t even let our animals live in. In fact, most would give anything to have a “house” comparable to what my chickens live in.

My Pastor also shed some light on the subject recently. He compared our normal lifestyle here in the states to third world countries. Compared our salaries. Who am *I* to complain about my high electricity bill when there are people that are living in these poverty stricken countries? Especially considering that most people live on the same amount of money for a whole year that my family makes in less than a week, what we make in just a DAY in a lot of cases.

So my opinion has changed. Yes, we still have poor, homeless and orphaned kids here. Yes, there is still a need for outreach in our communities. However, our beautiful country has pretty decent opportunities for these less fortunate people to be clothed, fed and sheltered. Other countries do not. In fact, not only are they deprived of basic human needs, they are deprived of religious freedom.

I cannot say that I came up with this passion all on my own. In fact, I didn’t come up with it at all. With some help from a couple very important people in my life, I’ve come to realize that this world is bigger than me. Bigger than my country. Bigger than my selfishness.

While I wish I could be there to run (walk…..) the marathons that Jessica is preparing for with her to raise money for this cause, this baby on her way and logistics just wont let it happen. So I’m going to do what I can from here. Which (and try not to be completely surprised) is BAKING!

Jessica is involved in a fundraiser for poverty-stricken African communities. She is bribing…..er……enticing people to donate $10 to make her goal of $300 by January 16th with a dozen sugar cookies! I told her I would match her baking offer here locally in ID/UT!

So for the first 30 people to donate a minimum of $10, I will deliver a dozen sugar cookies OR a dozen cupcakes to you personally! If you would rather donate the cookies/cupcakes to a friend, hospital, coworker, etc, I would be more than happy to do that also!

I will put a couple links down at the bottom here. The top one will be for Jessica’s Team World Vision page to donate the $10 to. The others will be links to her blog about why this is important to her and then some other Team World Vision sites she has shared.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Jessica's Team World Vision page. Donate HERE!

Jessica's Blog, New Realities!

World Vision Uganda Video

Cowgirls Don't Cry

Today on the way to preschool the song Cowgirls Don’t Cry came on the radio. Wade gets all excited when he hears two specific words in a song and makes a HUGE deal out of it. Those words are “Cowboy(girl)” or “Jesus”. If he hears either of them, he about comes out of his seat to tell me. Which is quite often, because we listen to country music and KLOVE all the time… So when he heard the lyrics today he says “Hey mom! He said “cowgirl”! He said they don’t cry!” I kinda laughed and said “usually”. Then he pipes up with, “It’s kinda like you mom. Kinda like you don’t cry AND you’re a cowgirl!” which was really ironic because it was right about then that the tears started running down my face!

I try really hard to keep my stress and fear out of sight of my boys. I’m so glad to hear straight from the babe’s mouth that I’m doing a pretty good job of it! But then I got thinking and I asked myself a question. My boys might not see my fears and frustrations. They might not see the tears. So what ARE they seeing? Not a question I wanted to answer honestly to myself. They’re not seeing joy and they’re not seeing faith, that much I know for sure. They’re seeing robotic actions of an overwhelmed mother instead of love and patience.

I‘ve finally come to realize that every time I start struggling with something it circles right around to not having enough faith. Me being the hardheaded person that I am keeps going back to the way I’ve always handled things and trying to fix things on my own instead of giving it up to God like I know I need to. Somehow I manage to be surprised every time it doesn’t work….imagine that. And yet I keep doing it.

If nothing else, at least I’m tenacious…

I need to learn how to dig deeper into my newly formed faith when I’m at my wits end. It’s hard though. REALLY hard. You would think that something so obvious and so promising would come so easy, like falling in love with a new pair of Luccese boots. But I’ve always been a stubborn creature of habit, and faith isn’t an exception. It’s been 20-something years of doing things my way and it’s not easy to buck this wagon out of it’s ruts. But that’s exactly what it is. Ruts of tears and frustration and pain that I get stuck in over and over. It’s not a happy place. It’s muddy down here, and there’s a lot of manure. (Wading through horse crap, you‘d think I‘d be used to it! Haha!) And I hit walls a lot. And I don’t mean just bump into them, I mean crash head on, tumbling head over heels and slam through a brick wall.

Apparently, I’m also enthusiastic with my tenacity.

The difference now is, I have babies to teach. They are learning their faith from me. The problem is, I don’t like to be stretched, challenged or pushed. Not in ways that makes me uncomfortable anyways and faith isn’t always comfortable. It’s not always easy and sometimes it actually hurts! It’s something crucial that I do for myself though, for my marriage and for my kids.

The enthusiastic tenacity needs to be redirected. Kind of like a toddler…

It’s so hard for me to stop the tears and keep the fears at bay. When I start to wig out about something, I try hard to tell myself to stop an pray but all I really want to do is throw something and scream real loud. Somehow I need to figure out how to have a heart so full of faith that there’s no room for the fears. That way I wont have to worry about the crazy mother my boys are seeing because if there’s no room for the fear then there's no cause for the tears and all that’s left is love! And, as Wade likes to believe, cowgirls don't cry anyways!

Just couldn't wait!!!

I really wanted to wait til my next ultrasound on the 15th to “announce” this, just to be sure. I really wanted to wait to send out the news on a Christmas card. But….well….I’ve never been really good at waiting! And Wade likes to tell everyone he sees what it is. Punk isn’t much help!

As it turns out, Wade’s prediction from the beginning was correct! The doctor says it looks like the boys are getting a baby sister!!

I’m still kind of in shock. I haven’t bought one single pink thing and I’m really not sure why! Even when I go look at baby stuff, I find myself gravitating to the baby boy section. Guess it’s just habit!

I do know that I get all choked up when I think about her. Years ago, when I found out I was pregnant with Wade, I wanted a boy SO BADLY so that any future girls of ours would have a big brother. Now this little girl will have TWO big brothers! And the thought of a baby girl with her daddy….oh boy….talk about getting sappy! I’m actually crying as I write this! LOL! I think it has a lot to do with my own dad being gone, and how I’ll get to see my daughter grow up ALL the way with her dad. Kind of live vicariously through her and watch her have the experiences I didn’t get to. She’s not even born yet, and I’m already thinking about how I’m going to be an emotional wreck when Chuck dances with her at her wedding. Or when he’s a Grandpa and holds his daughters first baby.

Don’t get me wrong, I love watching my boys with their dad. How they look like him, and act like him (well, I USUALLY like that part…) and talk like him. But there’s just something different with a Daddy and his little girl. If I know my husband, he is going to be putty in her hands too! He’s bad enough with the boys, but can you imagine the horses and ponies her and I are going to easily talk daddy into buying?

A very good friend of mine is a fabulous photographer, and is going to do what is called a Birth Story for me. Basically, she takes a billion pictures of the whole labor and delivery process. I’m SO excited for this, because she takes amazing pictures and I just love her to pieces! I think I will tell her “Take about five hundred thousand daddy-daughter pics!” LOL!

For all those wanting all the little details, the doctor’s exact words were “it looks awfully girly to me! Really flat there…..and three white lines there!”. I was as shocked at the three white lines as I was the two pink lines I saw months ago! Lol! I think the doctor was as excited about the gender as I was, because that’s the very first thing he checked, and actually almost forgot to measure her to see how far along I was! We had talked about how baby #3 is the one that pushes you over the edge. Like 2 kids is no big deal, but once you have 3, you might as well have 12! (My doc is awesomely funny, by the way! I just love him!) I told him that I can handle 3 kids, but 3 BOYS might just send me to the insane asylum! So I think he was pretty happy to tell me it looks like a girl!

When he got around to actually measuring her, she measured at 20-21 weeks. Not the 17 like I thought I was. Long story short, I wasn’t exactly sure when I got pregnant, but I *thought* it was AFTER my appendectomy this past summer. I guess it was right BEFORE the surgery, so it didn’t show up on the HCG test they did. But she looks healthy, and he calmed my fears about being pregnant during all that surgery crap. Said there’s nothing to worry about. I also discussed being induced with this one with him, because my babies are always in a hurry to come out and I live an hour and a half away from the hospital. My babies are also usually in SUCH a hurry, that they decide come out a week or two earlier than expected too. My technical due date is April 5th, but we’ll schedule and induced labor a couple weeks before then, just to be safe.

SO. The story is: Unless this midget grows new parts between now and the next ultrasound, our Whitley Makenna will join us some time around the end of March!

*Note: And equally sappy and crazy-emotional-pregnant-momma blog will be coming soon regarding the naming of our little girl!