Life Board

What do you want your life (or your kitchen, your job, your x) to look like? Create your own inspiration board.

I could have put a whole lot of work into this one, but I tried to keep it simple and think of just the very first things that popped in to my head, since those are probably the most important to me!  So here is my dream "life" board!  

Community!

December 6th: How do you want get involved in your community this year?

Well, this is a question I honestly haven't put a TON of thought into, but  I'll give it a shot.  I mean, this is the first year in a very long time that we don't have any HUGE (like uh, new baby in the house type) plans for the year.  Which means, theoretically if the 3 children in my care give me a bit of free time I guess this would be a possibility.

Truly, I think community involvement is important.  If all goes well, I would love to get more consistent at going to church, but the only reason this is inconsistent is because the odds of all children being 100% healthy on any given Sunday is pretty much a miracle in itself this winter.  Our church does some pretty cool things for our community and getting more involved with that, would be good.  One very easy opportunity I would like to see myself get involved in is filling yellow bags full of groceries.  It is a pretty simple task.  The yellow bags hang by the front door of the church.  You grab one when you leave, you take it home and fill it with food, bring it back and set it by the front door.  Members of the church take these bags of food, go into different parts of the community and knock on doors, asking families if they could use some groceries and hand them out.  This would be a pretty simple way to help out just a little bit.  Ideally, I would love to fill one bag every month in the coming year.

I look at community as a very broad term.  I really hope this coming year see's one of us off to Ethiopia on a mission trip.  This is something on both of our hearts, but it is a lot harder for me to take that leap. Ideally, it would be wonderful for Peter to get a chance to serve in this way this year, just because trying to coordinate the schedule of our 3 children while I am gone for 2 weeks sounds very difficult.  However, you just never know and it may be me facing my fears and hopping back on that plane by year end :)  Serving on mission trips is something that is very important to us and we especially feel strongly that we need to serve the people of Ethiopia.  In the years to come, I think it would be awesome if we rotated years and one of us was in Ethiopia each year!  

Another area of community involvement on our minds and hearts is foster care.  Now, before I jump any guns here I will say this is an area that we have been praying about and have not felt the Lord saying "yes, move!" but we keep listening and you just never know.  Foster care is so important but in the research I have done it also sounds like it would be a heart wrenching calling.  Of course my heart is already feeling very led towards another adoption, but I doubt we will be in a position to move forward on that in 2013, so helping children in need through foster care could be a great opportunity to make a difference even if it is just short term care.  My heart and passion is definitely with babies and children, and I want to continue to use that passion to the absolute most that God will allow!  

Asking Others

December 5th: Interview 3 people about their favorite moments of the year. Share what you heard.

I kind of cheated on this one and asked more people than 3, but it is my blog so I can do what I want :)

I have a wonderful group of friends and we call ourselves the "Mardi Gras Mom's".  We all "met" a few years back early in our pregnancies with lil Mardi Gras babies (all due in early March, around Mardi Gras).  Now our little babies are growing up into 2 year old's before our very eyes.  Now, I know that "internet friends" may be a weird concept to many but I have many internet only friends - friends that I met through our adoption agency, blog friends who I met way back years ago when we were all planning our weddings, and this wonderful group of ladies.  We talk several times a day and offer each other advice.  We've walked through a lot of very challenging things together, and well, we're bonded even if we've only met through our computer screens.  

So, after that long explanation here are a few answers I got by asking my MG mama's!

HS: "when my husband agreed to get snipped lol! ok im jk, i would say when i completed my first half marathon, finding out i was pregnant with baby 4 the day after completing my first 24 hr walk for my aunt who died of cancer, completing my 500 mile challenge, dh's team winning their 3rd consecutive championship..... oh so many. My son's first basketball basket, daughters first swim meet... 

HR: Hearing my last child call O, Oweee! Its the sweetest sound. They ALL called him Oweee, never failed.

KL:  Um... J learning to ride his bike without training wheels. My surprise +HPT and birth of P. D agreeing we could stay in N crammed into our townhouse for one more year for my sanity. H's butt scoot crawl. Thought of another... Ds reaction when I told him I was preggo. 

LY: The day I put in my notice at work to stay home full time!

CB: So many for me too.... B's first birthday, finding out I was pregnant, T graduating high school, T getting pulled up to varsity football and getting his driving permit, D dominating on his football team.

MS: The day we found out K's open heart surgery was a success, had healed correctly and she wasn't going to have on going issues.


And for good measure, my husband also wanted to be included and his was the birth of our sweet daughter of course :)  

Wise Choices

December 4th - What was the wisest decision you made this year?


The wisest decision I have made this year is to keep trying at this mothering thing.  That sounds really silly, because I don't have a choice as I am a mother and will always be a mother.  But, parenting toddler boys is a whole new type of crazy!  It is a crazy that has seen me fail many times with my parenting decisions.  I lose my cool, I get distracted.  I have to work on forgiving myself and there have even been a few times that I have openly apologized to my children.  I am so far from perfect but I have had to learn to forgive myself for the mistakes I have made and remember that I get to try again tomorrow.  And children are very, very forgiving of their mommy's, which has taught me a huge life lesson in letting go and moving on.

Another big mothering lesson I have learned, is that each of my children are unique and have different wants and needs.  I have had to adjust my expectations for each one of them and have even had to adjust my discipline technique for each of them.  They respond differently and therefore I need to handle them differently.  By figuring out  what makes each one of them tick and how best to handle difficult situations with them, everyone is much happier!  When I get frustrated with them, instead of getting angry I look into their eyes and see into their soul and it usually helps me calm down quickly and see their little hearts who just need a little redirection, not anger from me.  

I have also learned to trust my intuition.  God has given us mom's a beautiful gift of intuition.  I have learned many times that if I follow my gut, I'm usually right.  I may not be parenting my children "by the book" but "my way" works well for our family and so that is what I will keep doing!  I still often seek out advice and research things but my heart has always led me in the right direction with the kids.  

I love being a mom.  It is the best part of my life.  But it is also the biggest challenge I have ever faced in life.  I am molding human beings right now!  Children who I hope will someday grow up and be valuable God-loving members of society.  This is no easy task and it sure does take a lot of wisdom and growth in myself to accomplish!  

Meeting People

December 3rd: If you could meet someone new in 2013, who would it be? Or would you rather spend more time with someone you already know?


This one is very easy and very personal for me to answer.  If i could meet any person in 2013, hands down I would wish to meet the woman who gave birth to my son!  If you would have asked me even at the beginning of our adoption process how I felt about open adoption, I probably would have said "not for me."  There was a piece of my heart that did not want to share this child that I went through all this work to adopt and bring in to my family.  I didn't want to have to compete with another mother over my children.  For me, it was all shrouded in selfishness and fear that my child would prefer another woman over me!  

Even while we were in process of adopting Malachi, my heart changed and by the time we brought Malachi home, my heart was fully softened towards this woman.  And now, I would love nothing more than to have the opportunity for an open adoption.  I see so much good that could come from it!

I would love to sit down with this woman and let her know how incredible her son is.  How much he has BLESSED our lives and how thankful we are to get to be his parents.  I would love to sit down and tell her all about how gifted his mind is!  How fantastic of a dancer he is!  How hilarious and loving he is!  I would love to show her pictures of his first birthday party and the first time he took a step. His cheesy smile.    I would love for her to have the opportunity to even see a glimpse into the life he lives.  I would love for her to have peace in her heart that her precious little boy is safe and very very loved.  

I would love to sit down with this woman and ask her the hundreds of questions that have crossed my mind over these last couple years.  I would love to know if her favorite color is yellow too.  I would love to know if her personality is as big as my son's.  I would love to see if she has a little  button nose just like him.  I would love to have answers to the "why" when Malachi starts asking someday.

So 100%, for sure.  I would love to meet the woman who gave me the most incredible gift in this life!  Not a DAY goes by that she is not in my mind and held close in my heart.  

Unplugging

Small box prompt December 2nd: Unplug for an hour, a half day, or a whole day. Choose a time that feels a little uncomfortable. How did you feel? What did you do? Reflect on your experience. How much did you unplug this year? How does this experience make you feel about unplugging in the coming year?

This is not something I did today, but it is something I have been working hard on lately.  I have been really working at unplugging and giving my kids my full attention in the hours they are up.  This is a bit of a struggle for me, because I'm often a bored housewife ;)  But in striving to "be present" more I have gotten a lot more quality time with my kids, which with 3 of them under 2, they really need!  I can also get a lot more done in a day if I just set the computer aside and get to work!  The internet is a wonderful tool, but it can also be a huge distraction from the most important things in life and I am striving daily to find that right balance!

Think Kit - Year in Photo's

Similar to last year, I wanted to spend this last month of the year looking back on the year behind us and looking forward to my year ahead!  This year I have linked up at Small Box with a Year End Think Kit. You can join the link up HERE - THINK KIT

So my first day is: Your year in photos. Did one photo encapsulate your year? Maybe it takes a gallery. Go out and take a new one that represents your year if you need to. Let's see those photos.

Now, I am a big fan of photos, so I had to really show some restraint in this recap.  But here is what I came up with for my year end photo recap!

The beginning of February we celebrated Eli's first Birthday.  Look at that lil baby boy :)

By the middle of February, I was starting to contract and had my first positive FFN which meant strict bedrest for 7 loooong weeks!   It was a huge relief to make it to 9 months because around that 32 week mark there was a lot of concern that little miss was going to be arriving soon.  

On April 16th, Mr Malachi turned 2 years old!  

  2 days after Malachi's birthday, we celebrated our sweet little girl's birthday! And if I could pick only one picture to depict my year, this would probably be it!  After a hard and scary pregnancy, I got to enjoy an easy and perfect birth ending with the words "It's a girl!"!!!  

                               A week after Sabrina's birth, we had Malachi's 2nd Birthday Party!

Sabrina's 1st 4th of July!

                                  6 years of a marriage that just continues to get better everyday! 

Malachi's 2nd Gotcha Day!

                                                        A special family trip to Disneyland!

Family Pictures! 

My first run!  

Halloween!

                                                             Peter becoming a CPA!

                         And now another special and magical Christmas!  My life is so incredibly blessed!