Stella Day 3

Today was a great day! I don't know what we are going to do when we get back home. Isaac will probably look at me and say "What? No pool, no river, no beach?" "I'm going back to Stella! " ;)

"Umm, I have a wedgie, Can I come in?"

Isaac and Memere walking to the beach.

Isaac looooved the water. He got brave and started charging the waves. . .mommy was running close behind! ;)

Isaac after his shower at the beach!

Stella day 2!

Today we took Isaac back to the river. . .

He had lots of fun and met a couple "puppies". He even scolded one of them for playing with Vanderbilt. Isaac came running out of the water and said "no,no,no,no".

No trip to the river is complete without proper shoes. They're hot, I know! Yesterday when we went down to the river the water was murky and warm and I thought " this is a labor of love" (and if we come back I am totally wearing shoes!)

And lastly, I will leave you with a picture of Isaac talking to the cat. I use the work "talking" loosely, it's more like yelling. Isaac also tried to play ball with the cat. The cat responded by hissing at him. I understand. Honestly, who would want a ball flying at them during a nap?

Daddy, we miss you! We can't wait to see you on Friday!

Fathers Day and Stella

For Father's Day this year we went to Battleboro to visit Blake's parents. We had a great time. We went to church, came home, put Isaac down and had a fantastic lunch!

Don't you love how easy it is to get a family picture with a toddler? :)

He's enjoying life a little better here ( He went to visit the chickens). If you look at his right hand it is clasping tightly to a huge blue and green beetle he found on the porch. He later threw a bit of a fit when mommy made him leave his new friend outside ;)

On Sunday evening Blake had to leave for Virginia Beach for his graduate school course. Whenever Blake has to travel for school I usually take the opportunity to go to my parents house in Stella. Did I mention they have a pool? Oh yeah, we are having a great time! Isaac too :)

Two pairs of goggles and one pair of sunglasses!

Too cool for school. He'll be here all week ladies. ;)

After Isaac's nap we went down to the river and let him wade around. "Wading" turned into him trying to lead us into the middle of the river had we let him! That boy knows no fear!

View from the shore, I love the coast!

Due Date

This past weekend was the due date of our second child. It's a weird feeling. You can't help but wonder what it would be like to have that child here. What would it be like to have two kids right now? As I was thinking about this last weekend I thought "I bet we all go through these feelings". You don't have to have miscarried to have a "due date" in mind.

I think we probably all do it. We have a time period in mind, or a picture of how our future is going to work out. For example "I think I'll be married by the time I'm 25. . ." or "I will be making this amount of money in certain number of years. . " etc, you get the picture.

But what happens when our "due date" comes or even passes and we have nothing to show for it. What if it doesn't turn out how we envisioned? It's pretty easy to get discouraged about it and even lose a little hope.

So let me just preface this next part by saying I didn't just immediately arrive to the following thoughts. It's been a process.

After thinking about this stuff the other morning I reminded myself I need to have a big picture perspective. If I start magnifying a particular incident or event (like the miscarriage) it makes me sad. But if I can pan out a little and look at that in the span of my life it gives me more hope. I also have to look at the other side of the coin. Yes, negative things happen, but so do some really great things. Shouldn't I also look at the positive things that I didn't see in my future? I never saw a relationship with God in my future when I was in college. And I sure never envisioned marring a man that would value me enough to save ourselves until marriage. I never really wanted children, and now I have a little man that brings more joy to my life than I ever imagined.

I guess what it boils down to, is not just focusing on the bad or unpleasant things that have happened but having the right perspective and rejoicing in the good.

These past 9 months were not the path I would have chosen for my life. But I trust God that He knows infinitely more than I do about what I need. He can work this past season for good. It's all about perspective.

What's up?

I know it has been a while, sorry for not posting ! This time of year is pretty hectic for us. I call it the "living out of our suitcase" season. That's pretty much what we do from mid May to Mid August every year. It's great because we get to see a lot of people and catch up but it can be exhausting :)

The other thing that is exhausting lately is keeping up with wild man! Isaac does not stop. He is everywhere. Today while I was loading a CD in the DVD player he went into the kitchen and climbed on top of the table. I came around the corner and he was wearing a t-shirt and diaper swinging the light over the table back and forth. I'm just lucky I caught him before he decided to hang from it! (It was funny, but I tried not to let him see me laughing. I also wanted to take a picture but thought that would be encouraging the action, so I opted out of that idea.) :)

This is another example if Isaac's handy work!

Our house pretty much looks like a tornado went through it before nap time.

I hope to write again soon! Hope you are enjoying your summer as much as we are!

The New Strong-Willed Child

To my great surprise I met my goal and finished "The New Strong-Willed Child". I've been working on it for months and hadn't gotten past the first 3 chapters until this month.

This was a great book. I am by no means an expert now at raising children but I feel much more prepared for the season we are moving into with Isaac. He is somewhat "strong-willed" but I haven't met many toddlers that were not. I think that's just human nature playing itself out.

So what did I learn from this book? Well, I'm glad you asked :)

One of the biggest things was what Dr. Dobson said about the balance between love and control. When the scale tips in either direction is when things get out of whack. He also said in this balance we need to recognize "that implementing a reasonable and consistent action line does not assault self-worth; instead, it represents a source of security for an immature child". The 'action line' was a big thing for me too. That's when you give your child clear boundaries or instructions and they disobey there is a consequence. Your child knows if they do this action, this consequence will happen. But they will push until they know you will react.

This really helped me with a situation we are having with Isaac. For some reason Isaac has a thing for throwing his food and utensils off of his tray when he's eating. He's been doing it for months and we had started doing a slap on the hand when he threw food off. Now, let me say I understand the whole "exploratory" phase but we are way past that. He looks at us sometimes and holds his cup hostage over the side challenging us to see what will happen. We used to give a lot of warnings but this week we started implementing some of the methods Dr. Dobson talks about in his book. We have had a lot less incidents because Isaac now know the first time is it. Mom and Dad mean business. Let me also say we don't scream, yell, or get mad at Isaac. I really appreciated that about this book as well. Dr. Dobson does a good job of describing the difference between controlled discipline and child abuse. We in no way would ever want to belittle or hurt Isaac. But we do have to navigate between shaping the will and preserving his spirit.

Overall, I felt like there was some great straight forward advice and some great insight. Now onto "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollen.

Encouraging Yourself

Yesterday I took a much needed trip to our chiropractor in Goldsboro. (And man does my back feel better!!) Anyway, Blake came home to work from there while Isaac napped and I took my road trip. It's just too hard to try to bring Isaac by myself now.

While I was in the car I found Blake's cassette tapes ( I know, old, right!?) titled "Winning in Life". So I pulled out one by Jim Laffoon entitled "Encouraging Yourself". It was really good. He started out by talking about the difference between fear and discouragement. Fear and terror can come on you in a wave, a matter of minutes or even seconds. Discouragement is similar to an IV drip that can happen over a span of time and mess up a healthy point of view.

I had never thought about the difference between the two. Both can be really debilitating. He went on to share a couple of passages from scripture that were really good. On of them I had actually already been meditating on for the past few months.

Psalm 42: 11 "Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God."

I used to be the first one, and still occasionally let my emotions take me where they want. I used to ride life based off of my "feelings". Which frankly would not take me to the most comforting of places. These past few months I've had to claim this verse. I would have to grab my emotions by the scruff of the neck, like a dog and tell them what they were going to do. I would tell my soul, ' God's done so much for you, you better start hoping again because He is faithful'. It's hard to do when we are discouraged or even depressed but boy does it make a difference over time.

That leads into the next psalm that Pastor Jim talked about in that message, Psalm 103.

Psalm 103: 1-5 "Bless the Lord, O my soul, And all that is within me , bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits;

Who pardons ALL your iniquities,

Who heals all your diseases;

Who redeems your life from the pit,

Who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion;

Who satisfies your years (or desires) with good things,

So that your youth is renewed like the eagle."

I mean just look at that list.(*See Bible for a complete list of all God's benefits) God has forgiven us of all our sins, heals all of our diseases, redeems our life from the pit. The list goes on and on. Man, that's pretty awesome stuff. I can encourage myself daily with this list. I don't know about anybody else but my life surely needed some redeeming, especially after college. I'm sure glad he didn't leave me in my pit to be a pit dweller. How miserable would that be!? So, go ahead, encourage yourself today. God loves you. He has a plan for your life. . .today.