Current Happenings in David World

 David is not cruising yet, but is definitely pulling up on EVERYTHING!

 He loves to pull up on the couch where Mommy and Daddy are!

 This was a hard shot to get, but as you can see, we officially have a tooth!!

 I propped him up against the wall, and it's HILARIOUS, because he can't figure out how to get down.

 I'm not sure I've introduced monkey yet. Nor have I elaborated on how ridiculously attached D is to monkey! He loves to put monkey on his head and he plays and sleeps with monkey! He points to monkey's nose and kisses monkey, too.

 Hard to capture, but David is crawling SO fast now.

 We also love puzzles and books SO much! We are pointing to different objects and trying to learn what they are and what the sounds they make.

 David also loves all his musical instruments. He loves to dance, sing, and bang on drums.

 We can say, "Du, Du, Du" for duck, and "Ca, Ca, Ca" for quack!

 We pull up at the top of the steps and wait at the gait for Mommy to come back upstairs!

This was taken before he started pulling up, but now that he does, he's usually standing and yelling for me!

David is growing up so fast! My little guy will be a year old in about two weeks!!!! I am so excited for him. He's also saying "Coh, Coh" and pointing to the clock. He points to the light, television, window, and bookshelf. He's learning so fast! I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful little boy.

What's your button? Who Pushes it? How do you turn it off?

Everybody has their bent. Their thing. That things that sends them into a tizzy, a panic, a flat out heart attack. That kind of thing. What's mine? Blood Pressure. Heck, all I have to do is walk by one of these babies and my BP shoots through the roof. It all started with a bout of preeclampsia during/after pregnancy. But now I have a serious problem. A huge, big, massive problem.

I've dealt with fear and anxiety since I was a little girl. Mostly in the form of hypochondria. Always scared of germs and diseases, I did everything I could to avoid certain foods, people, places, and things. Which made it pretty tough on my mom and dad when I would call them at work crying and swearing up and down that I had contracted the Ebola virus! Some adult (I credit them for changing my life in a NOT so good way) let me watch an episode of the Oprah show when I was in the 1st or 2nd grade. The episode was ALL about severe, even deadly cases, of salmonila contracted through beef or chicken. For the the next two or three years I think the only things I ate were chicken (after I examined EACH bite VERY carefully making sure there was NO red or any spots or ANYTHING unusual), cheese, and potatoes, a few other unhealthy things that couldn't really go bad. I gave my parents SUCH a hard a time with food. I don't know if they understood that a lot of it was about anxiety, not finickiness.

As I've grown into adulthood, I'd like to think of myself as more logical and my mind a bit more sound. I've outgrown some of my fears and anxieties only to replace them with new ones. My repertoire of food has grown tremendously although I still have my fears about meat. But as an adult, I have logic and reasoning to help me overcome my silly fears. I also have Jesus! :)

Over the years I have often thought that if I didn't have Jesus, I wouldn't make it very long in dealing with fear and anxiety. He comforts me and calms me and sends His peace!

So, back to the blood pressure thing? I have a serious problem. Anyone who's halfway decent friends with me knows that I am passionate about children and having lots of babies! But honestly, after dealing with what I went through during my first pregnancy, I can honestly say that I am terrified to have more kids. To get sick. To even have to go to the doctor. All of these things are issues that would cause me to get my BP taken. The idea of having my BP taken by a medical professional puts my stomach in knots. It used to be that I could take my BP here at home and it would be fine. Not anymore. Just Friday morning, I spent an hour trying to take my BP trying to calm down enough to get it normal. If I lay on my left side it's like 114/60. I keep thinking that doesn't count though because at the dr.'s office they measure it sitting up. So I sit up, go into complete panic and it shoots up to 140's/80's! I can't even calm down long enough to get it down anymore. I used to always get it down to 120/80's. I've given myself brittany-coat syndrome! (For those of you who don't get my ridiculously corny joke, I'm saying that I've gone BEYOND white coat syndrome which is fear of doctors and medical professionals taking your BP).

I don't really want to go into the details of my BP taking. It's pathetic and gets pretty ridiculous. I never even cared before I had a baby. I am just asking you all to pray with me and join me in helping to tackle this ridiculous fear of something that doesn't even hurt! My devotional today talked about how we fight not against flesh and BLOOD (pressure), but against powers and principalities and evil forces in the heavenly realms. That scripture spoke straight to my soul this morning. I am always looking into the near future and thinking about when we might have another baby. I read this morning where Jesus tells us NOT to worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow has it's own set of problems. Where am I at today (not yesterday)? And from where I'm sitting, today is lookin' pretty darn good! :)

I realize that panic, fear, and anxiety are a thorn in my flesh. They always have been and as long as I live in this earthly body I'll probably always deal with moments of crippling fear. God knows I have a bent towards pride and self-dependance. So I thank Him that, even though I pray and plead and beg Him to take away my thorn, He always keeps me reliant and pleading for His peace! I will praise Him in the storm.

Anyway, I'm asking for you to commit to praying with me that I can conquer this fear. I CANNOT go through life being afraid of doctors or medical help. At some point in my life, I will need medical attention. :) Hope it's later rather than sooner! I am also willing to commit with you to pray for your hot button! I would love for you to comment and tell me about the things that push your buttons and get you all worked up! What are some things that stress you out and/or cause you to panic?

Lastly, and most importantly, I want to encourage you (and me)! There are several verses I have memorized that always help. Here they are:

God did not give me a spirit of fear, but of POWER, LOVE, and a SOUND MIND!
1 Timothy 1:7

Perfect Love casts out ALL fear, for fear brings torment. If we fear, it is for fear of judgment and this shows His love is not being perfected in us.
1 John 4:18

For God did not give us a spirit of bondage again to fear, but a spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba Father!" Romans 8:15

When I am afraid, I will trust in You.
Psalm 56:3

The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?
Psalm 27:1

And SOOO many more! God's Word is full of peace and sound mind! Let's commit to pray together! How can I pray for you?

7 Year Itch, 5 Year Scratch

You know what really bothers me? Have you ever looked at someone else's wedding album and laughed because the bridesmaid dresses were so out of style or the wedding dress had long sleeves, poofy shoulders, and ridiculous amounts of lace? That is sooooo 70's, 80's, or 90's. Right? Pick your decade. Whatever. Well, I'm starting to feel that way about my very "traditional" wedding album and it was only 5 years ago. Oh well. I loved my wedding. It's just funny how time changes things. I have this personal goal that once I get to my goal weight and can fit beautifully into my wedding dress, then I'm going to have one last hoorah and have a "trash the dress" photo shoot! THEN, I am going to sell my dress. My daughter is NOT going to want it. I'm ok with that. I did not want my mom's.

          Anyway, happy 5 year anniversary to my wonderful husband of - well - 5 years. :) I cannot believe that at 25, most people my age still just getting started in life, I have been married for 5 years and have an 11 month old child as of tomorrow. I tell people all the time, I am living my dream! To be a wife and mother is all I've ever wanted. But to get to be Calvin's wife and David's mother? That's MORE than I ever could have asked or imagined. That's what God's Word says though, doesn't it?

Paul’s Prayer for Spiritual Growth - taken from Biblegateway.com

 ¹⁴ When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father,^{[a] 15} the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.^{[b] 16} I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. ¹⁷ Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. ¹⁸ And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. ¹⁹ May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. ²⁰ Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. ²¹ Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.


This is one of my favorite passages of Scripture. I've prayed it for myself and for many a friend. If I've prayed for you, I might have prayed this. That God would give you more than you could ask or imagine. That HIS plan for your life would prevail, because it's SOOO much better than our plans for our lives.

To Celebrate the wonderful occasion of 5 years I wanted to, of course, post some wedding pics! I've posted them on FB, too. I know there are repeats, but these are a few of my favorites.

Calvin: I love you so much. I know I don't tell you enough, but you are a GREAT husband and an excellent Father. Corny to say, but you are life a fine wine. You get better with age! :) Seriously, it's true. Every year we are married we get more wisdom and grow more in love. Here's a song from me to you that can express more than I can say: Dave Barnes - I have and I always Will

Life in the Fast Lane - Passive Aggressive Driving

              

    A month or so ago, I accidentally ran the stop sign at a ROUND ABOUT two seconds away from my house. A cop was, of course, sitting in the club house parking lot of Mansker Farms just WAITING for someone to do so. Unfortunately, I was the lucky person who got caught. I did run it. I did deserve a ticket. The thing that bothers me the most is that I didn't intentionally run it. Some people blatantly don't care about stop signs or yellow lights. As long as they get to where they are going. That's not me. I care. It was an accident. After a long day, I didn't stop. P.S. There are NOT supposed to be stop signs at a round about. The whole purpose of a round about is to yield into oncoming traffic. The injustice of the situation is that less than a month after my ticket they replaced the stop signs to yield signs! Can I say, "UGHHH!"  Oh well. It's over, done with, in the past. Last night I went to safety school. Traffic school. Whatever you want to call it. And just like everyone else, I felt like I did not deserve to be there. I felt I was a good - even a GREAT - driver. I am always extra careful with my baby in the car. I never go more the 5 mph over. I never speed in areas that I know police frequent. I never try to cross traffic, I always turn right or try to find a light. I hate cutting across parking lots. I consider myself to be careful. I always assume there will be traffic or an accident. 

Well, I guess I was wrong. I have to say that I was "convicted" at traffic school. It turns out I have "passive aggressive" road rage. Me? Isn't that funny? Here are some examples of passive aggressive road rage:

1. Do you ever drive in the left lane on the interstate and go the speed limit and just expect everyone else to deal with you? That is aggressive behavior. You are acting like YOU have the right to determine who gets to pass you or not. I have done that. We justify it because we're going the "speed limit". 

2. When merging from one lane to two to get ON the interstate do you ever scoot up to the car in front of you so as not to let oncoming traffic through? :) They haven't been waiting as long as you, but still, passive aggressive!

   There are several other examples of this, but the main lesson was that road rage is responsible for 1/4 of the accidents!! 25%! That's a huge number. One out of every 4 accidents is caused by anger! I kept thinking about how all of this related to my walk with Christ! Yes, I have a point. Do I treat others like I am better than them? Do I have a "right" more so than anyone else? Am I more worthy of the road or anything else for that matter than another human? Do I expect people to do things my way? Anger is our way of saying that we have a RIGHT to do things my our and others just have to deal with it. The root of anger is that it didn't go "my way." I can give you so many scriptures where God tells us that anger is the way of a fool. Yes, people are going to make you angry. Yes, people can act very hurtful and some people are just plain idiotic. Yes, there IS such thing as a righteous anger. But ultimately, Jesus gave us this command: In your anger, do not sin!

 Here's what I thought was funny. The video we watched in the class talked about how to counteract road rage by becoming a road WARRIOR! haha! An exercise you can try is this: Once a week when you are leaving for work or wherever, make a commitment to yourself that NOTHING IS GOING TO BOTHER YOU. NOTHING can make you mad. If someone cuts you off, tailgates you, etc...determine not to react. 

I thought this was funny because it's an exercise that practices great self-control. Being a Christian, I understand that I have no self-control other than what is a fruit of Christ's Spirit dwelling with me (Gal. 5:22-23). So for this secular video to tell you to practice such self-control, it kind of made me laugh. If the world expects that of us, how much more will Christ who gives us the POWER of self-control by living in us?  

Hear me out, I'm NOT talking about driving anymore. I'm talking going about our daily lives with the attitude that NOTHING can bother me. I am a new creation in Christ, more than conqueror through Him, a daughter of the King. I've been made for Him, by Him, and in Him I live, move, and have my being! Yes, people are going to make me angry or hurt me or cause me to stumble. But I am the righteousness of Christ! I have the same power that rose Jesus Christ from the dead living inside of me (Rom 8:11). I'm also talking about making sure that our anger doesn't cause us to think more of ourselves than others. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Thinking of others as better than us, and serving others rather than our needs and wants.

I just love how God uses practical stuff to show me spiritual truth! :)

Calvin's 30th Surprise Party

So I have absolutely been dyin' inside!! I started planning years ago that when Calvin turned 30 I wanted to throw him a surprise party. The only problem? My mouth. Which, conveniently enough, God convicted me over just this morning. Anyway, I'm sure I'll blog about that later..Ha!  I'd been planning over a month for Calvin's party behind his back. Buying little things here and there, calling people, making plans for the cake, getting ideas from friends and the internet. The week before I was SO afraid I would slip up! I was making visits to people to get the cake, hide the cake; I made homemade cookies and hid them in the refrigerator; I kept buying stuff for punch and leaving it in the car. All that to say, HE DIDN'T CATCH ON! He really was surprised!!!!

The idea of the party was this: Guests were told not to bring a gift, just a homemade or store bought ice cream. This would keep costs down for me and for guests (I'm throwing David a 1st bday party in less than a  month and needed to save money for that too and it would be cheaper for guests to bring ice cream rather than a gift). I provided the toppings, cake, and decorated. I bought ALL my decorations from Target when they were 50% - 75% off! Nothing was full price and several things I am reusing for David's party! Woohoo! Talk about saving money! I bought almost ALL the toppings for the ice cream at Aldi. What a GREAT grocery store. They are owned by the same company as Trader Joe's and their off brands are made by the same companies that make the real brands. So everything taste pretty good. I digress. On the list of toppings were: M&M's, peanuts, gummy bears, gummy worms, SweetTart gummies, Marshmallows, Milk and White Chocolate Chips. I also made homemade sugar cookies with royal icing. 

Here are pictures: 

 This is from Thursday. I did this on Thursday with the party on Saturday and put lids on the Mason jars and hid them in the hall closet!

 I made these cookies too! Did them on Thursday and put aluminum foil on them and hid them in the back of the refrigerator. It was funny, because Calvin doesn't touch leftovers. The Foil did the trick!

 Love these number cookies! They were my favorite!

 Here is what they looked like at the party with the decorations! I made name cards for all the food using scrapbook paper!

 This is one matched the blue and yellow polka dot theme!

The candy toppings!

Friday was hilarious! I was rushing around buying last minute things for the party: punch, fudge, caramel, plates and bowls, spoons and forks. Friday night I told Calvin that I was going to the grocery store and I did, but then I also went to Joseph and Heather's to make tissue paper pom poms! It's not uncommon that I do my grocery shopping at night, so Calvin didn't think twice! I told him we were having dinner with his parents Saturday night to celebrate his birthday. I told him I would make his favorite: Spinach tortellini with Alfredo and chicken and a homemade tiramisu. So I really did have to run to two different places before I found ladyfingers. World Market carries them by the way! That wasn't really happening, but I did plan on making his favorite dinner at some point. His actual birthday is Monday so I thought I'd do it then. Anyway, Saturday morning my stomach was in knots! I was SO anxious and excited! I wanted to get ready for the party so that when Joseph came to pick up Calvin to take him to lunch to get him out of the house I'd be able to jump right on in to decorating (please ignore my grammar and run on sentences!). I didn't want Calvin to think of it as unusual that I would be getting pretty'd up on a Saturday. I told him that I get tired of always looking so "mommy" and never doing my hair and makeup and I wanted to feel pretty so I was going to take a shower and do just that! He seemed to buy it! So I got ready and at 12:30, Joseph (who was in on it and had to figure out how to keep Calvin out until 2:30 p.m.) picked Calvin up and took him to Cafe Raka! Still jealous, because Cal's eaten there twice and I haven't yet. :( Anyway, still digressing. As soon as Cal left, I jumped into HIGH GEAR! Got out decorations, hung up paper lanterns and pom poms, signs, candy, plasticware, etc. I made punch, heated up fudge, and all this while trying to take care of David and feed him lunch. He kept going behind me and pulling down signs and trying to reach the tablecloth! At long last, guests started to arrive! I was able to arrange the icecream and cake on the table. I forgot to get pictures of the table fully stocked, but oh well! It looked great! At 2:30, Calvin walked in and was truly surprised! I was excited to pull it off. So I am done talking, here are the pictures: 

 The table before cake and ice cream!

 Tommy and Baby Sarah!

 The guests waiting for Calvin and Joseph to arrive!

 David with his eyes closed! ;) Sorry David, and we are still waiting!

 There's the computer in the background. We had a video we played from Lewis!

 SURPRISE!

 I kinda think he was embarrassed!

I have no idea why he has an ESPN book.

 I LOVE the punch I made. Blue Hi-C, Gingerale, Fresh cut Lemons, and blueberries! It was delicious and MATCHED! :)

 Thank you to Stacia Hamblin for the cake!

 Strawberry cake with buttercream icing!

 Besties!!!

 I love my friends!

Calvin and his wifey! That's me!

Calvin, here is a birthday message from me to you: 

You are an AMAZING father and husband! I could not have asked God for a better man. I know we struggle and each have our issues, but we are always working and striving to be better through Christ in us. I'm so thankful that you are a wonderful provider, protector, and encourager! You are always affirming me with your words and telling me what a good job I do. I don't always deserve that so I love you for loving me beyond my mistakes and sin. I want to love you the same way! Praising God for you and praying that we grow old together! You're my honey bunches of oats with almonds! ;) Love you!