Internet Amazing

I am completely and totally amazed at what possibilities the internet will open up for you. I have joined Facebook and been reunited with many highschool friends and been able to look into thier vitural photo books and see what they have been up to for the last ten years. In my effort to save money and one day be a stay at home mom I have been researching many different sites. I found one site that pays you to take surveys...so far I have earned $1.75, I have found many new coupon sites and many bargin sites which I will post tomorrow as it is getting late and when baby sleeps I need to sleep. I did put live feeds to a site called Freebies 4 Mom there are lots of samples on there and you can also print coupons off the site. The feed to it is on the left in my blog....Stay tuned as I update my blog with many of the other things I have learned today while Tyler was napping...

Ramblings of a pretend stay at home mom

First of all...I shouldn't even be on this computer right now. I had every intention of getting up early doing my devotional, getting Tyler up and going to Franklin to visit some friends. It is now 8:53AM and I have done none of that and still sit here in my P.J's. Tyler got up in the middle of the night for the first time in a long time and it threw my sleep pattern off and I am allowing it to through off my whole day. I have accomplished nothing that I wanted to get done so far today. For those of you who know me..I am usually up and around extremely early in the morning and try to get everything done as early as possible to have the whole day to relax. I have reunited with some old friends on FACEBOOK this morning though which was interesting and brought back alot of memories of myself when I was Trey's age and thought that I knew it all and was ULTRA COOL.

Anyhow I have enjoyed my 11 weeks off work so far and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. I am far from ready to go back to work even though I have a fantastic job. While I have been off I have let life slow down a little bit and have made more time to do my devotional, journal, pray and just calm down and be still from time to time. I think that is the thing that I have most enjoyed about being home. When I am working I tend to be stressed out trying to get everything done and try so hard to be perfect at everything that I find myself falling short on alot of things. The only thing that I truly miss about working outside of the home is the adult conversation and the recognition. (that was two things huh?) I have taken so much more pride in my home as I have been off and have taken time to clean things that I have neglected for longer than I should have-the inside of my stove, windowsills my closet-you get the idea. I have really enjoyed doing all of this stuff and have not done it for someone to say thank-you but as I was doing it yesterday it did hit me that noone would probably even notice that I had spent hours working on our home for US. I realized that stay at home moms have the most important job of all times but they don't get the recognition that they deserve. Noone says thank-you for washing my sheets so that I will get a good nights sleep and be alert to pay attention in school so that I can go on to get straight A's and maybe one day be the scientist that discovers Cancer. (ok so that is a stretch but you get the idea) Noone says thank-you so much for cooking a warm nutritious meal so that I can go to bed full so that I will be able to sleep peacefully before my big day at school. The list goes on. Don't get me wrong my family does tell me thank-you and my kids actually noticed that I made thier beds and vacummed thier floors but I don't think they truly realize how much I loved doing it for them or how much it meant to me to be able to do it for them. For me that is such a love language-taking care of things like that. I definately think it is EASIER to work outside of the home where you have very rigid set standards upon which you are measured and everyone knows what it took to accomplish whatever it is that you accomplish on a daily basis at your job. I don't think this is making any sense and I think I knew that I was very tired when I started this post hence the name Ramblings...what I am trying to say is Thank-you to all of you stay at home moms. You have the most important job of all and don't always get the recognition that you deserve so I am saying Thank-you for everyone and I pray that one day I will get to stay home more with my children to help shape them and love on them.

I can't believe I am admitting this....

Ok...so today is Sunday. I get Tyler up to go to Sunday School with me which starts at 9:00AM then our Church starts at 10:45 and the boys all meet me at church for that. So...I am rushing around and get Tyler ready and get myself ready and head out the door. I didn't realize how late it was. I got to church and it was 9:06 and there were no close parking spots. I thought about it for a minute and knew that my group sets up front in our Sunday School class and that one of my two leaders had probably already started or might even be in prayer right then. I got to embarrassed to go in and walk up front with a baby and interupt class so what did I do? just what the devil wanted me to do. I turned around and went home. Mike just grinned at me and shook his head when he saw me come in the door announcing I was late so I would just wait and go to church with them. One of these days I might grow up and get some confidence. I wanted to be in God's word so bad this morning and let the Devil keep me from it. On the flip side though when I got home before going to church I got an email from an old college roomate. This old friend was really struggling with some issues in her life and had found me on FACEBOOK which then directed her to my blog so she knew that I was a Christ follower and she was reaching out to me asking me to pray for her. She mentioned that she felt selfish asking me to pray for her to which I explained that I had felt that way so often-for example I feel like if I don't go to church every week I have no right to ask anyone to pray for me. I explained to her that is how the Devil works and we can't give in to it. I was incredibly honored that this person that use to be a very very close friend to me felt comfortable asking me to pray for her. I shared with her some things I have learned about myself and God over the last two months of doing the devotional Jesus Calling. I really felt like I was supposed to be home and read her email and answer her. I felt like it was God's timing that I see the email when I did and I hope that I was able to give her some peace knowing that I would gladly pray for her. For those of you that read this blog please pray for her as well. God knows who she is and what she needs prayer for.

All right...now I am off to church.

Have a great rest of the weekend.

An update and a brothers love

I haven't posted in a few days. Funny how we ask for prayer and pray frequently about things and then when God answers us we sometimes forget to shout out his Glory and tell about the blessings that he has given us. We went to the plastic surgeon last Thursday and he said he wouldn't touch Tyler with a 10-FT pole right now. He said the surgery would be to extensive and require him to have balloons inserted to stretch his skin. He advised us to wait until he is a pre-teen ( we are actually thinking about age 5) He did say we should get a biopsy of it but that he was sure it would turn up nothing. His suggestion was to have the biopsy when Tyler was between 6 and 8 months old after he had grown some. I need to call the Derm. back and make sure she is ok with this recommendation but the plastic surgeon really showed me that God was answering some prayers. He said that he had seen these before and that if we waited it wouldn't be a serious operation at all and would leave Tyler with just a small scar. He didn't think the risk of Cancer was anything to worry about as he felt the odds were in our favor. The whole time he was talking I was grinning like an idiot because I knew God was taking care of the situation. Someone told me that FEAR stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. I love that... so that is the update on that situation. Now I have to share something that has touched me a great deal today. Tyler had to go for his 2 month check up and get 3 shots. I took Trey and Conner with me so that we could go to Murfreesboro right afterwards. When it came time for the shots Conner chose to look away and stand facing the corner, Trey tried to help hold Tyler's legs done and he actually broke down and started crying. Some might consider this wimpy but I loved that his love for his brother was so evident. He is such a great big brother as is Conner. If they hear Tyler crying alot they will come down and ask what they can do to help. Conner even changed his first diaper today. This experience was a great lesson. I explained how even though they are older that it still hurts me when they get hurt but as a parent sometimes you have to stand by and watch while your children go thru something that hurts them. I explained that although the shots were to help make sure that Tyler had the opportunity to grow and be healthy it caused him a little pain in the beginning. Isn't that true of the love that God has for us? If we get that upset seeing our children hurt can you imagine how he must feel when we are hurting? WOW....

I am so blessed with my family and I love that they all love each other so much. Conner even told me today that I could live with him when I got old. I told him that he wouldn't really want me to live with him as it is hard to have someone else come live with you. I went on to say that his wife might not like me and he said well that is ok she can leave...I told him I was putting that in writing in his baby book so that when the time came I could show him that he chose me over his wife :) Have I mentioned that I love my kids???