BIG Thank you

Being the mom and being sick don’t go too well together! It’s a pain for everyone. Mom doesn’t feel well and that makes it hard to get a snack, watch a movie, play a game or get a book read or even get Mom to be as patient as she should be.

Today this is a “thank you” post to the most wonderful man in the world! Yup – my hubby! He’s been really, really wonderful the last few days while I’ve not been feeling well. He was wonderful before that, but he’s been extra great the last few days!

Not only has he unloaded/reloaded, put away the clean dishes and run the dishwasher countless times, he let Jane out and made sure she got fed, he made coffee, he also took the kids out for over and hour yesterday afternoon so I could take a nap!!! Oh how wonderful that was! THEN on TOP of all that – he offered to give the kids a bath (which is not his favorite parenting duty), and he helped get the kids to bed (which is a new challenge with Avery getting out of her bed all the time!)! Oh and did I mention that he vacuumed the entire house?!?!?!

Yup, I know – you’re jealous… I would be too if it wasn’t my husband doing all these wonderful things! All I can say is thank you David for being so wonderful! I love you so much! And thank you Lord for giving me such a great man!!!




Today I have some of my voice back – not all of it, but some. That’s an improvement from yesterday! I still have the cough and sore throat, but I’m hoping yesterday was the worst of it and from today forward it’ll get better! I hate being sick, and I’m praying the Lord protects the kids from getting it!!!!! Thank you all for your prayers, I appreciate them!

** As a side note – Avery goes today for her 2 year check up! I’ll update her stats after the appointment!

Our Adventures

I cannot believe that this week is December! We’ve had a wonderful last few days around here! It’s been great having David home so much and just being together doing “stuff”! It’s been fun going to spend time and eat wonderful food with family! And as hard as I anticipated it to be to eat correctly – it wasn’t so bad. I think overall David and I both did well in that area! I’m proud of us!



Our family hit another mile stone this week as well. Avery has learned to – and has several times – climbed out of her crib! Not fall out mind you – climb out. The first time it happened was Thanksgiving Day and I was in the shower, David was in his office across the hall from Avery’s room. He was listening for her to wake up – which in the past meant her crying. This time he heard a door knob trying to open. It wasn’t Luke, he was downstairs in the living room playing Wii, and I was in the shower – so he got up and sure enough, Avery was standing on the other side of her door! It’s happened each time she’s woken up from sleep since. This morning I was in the shower and all of a sudden there she was looking at me from the other side of the shower door! She has mastered opening her door since Thanksgiving Day as well! So the time has come to find Avery a big girl bed!



We also got our Christmas tree put up. It’s not decorated yet, but it got it up out of the box and since it’s pre-lit the lights are already on and so that’s nice! David also hung a wreath outside above our garage door. It looks really nice, if I do say so myself!

David and I last night had a mini stay at home date! It was lots of fun. After making pancakes, eggs and English muffins for the fam for dinner and putting the little ones to bed, we watched a movie – “The Proposal” – that David picked up from that cool Red Box thing they have at grocery stores now! It was a really cute movie and I had a good evening with my hubby right here at home! It’s been a good week and weekend!

And lastly you might ask – why am I blogging on a Sunday morning?!?! Shouldn’t I be getting ready for church?! Yes, I should be, but you see I’ve lost my voice. Yup – completely gone. I can get out a high pitched squeak if need be, but a whisper is about as good as I can do. I started feeling like I might be getting a cold a few days ago, and by last night I had no voice left! Although I don’t feel terrible, I don’t feel 100% either. I just thought it would be best not to expose all those other wonderful folks at church to my yucky! So I figured the next best thing was to blog!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Eve

Normally I love this time of year. I love Thanksgiving cause that means that Christmas is right around the corner. I love the decorations, and the planning of meals and the eating (of course!!!) and being with family and all that the Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday season involves. But for some reason, I seem to be having trouble getting into the swing of the holidays this year.

There shouldn’t be any particular reason for it either. I’ve got most of the decorations out – except the tree which we will hopefully get it out Thursday or Friday. I have been listening to Christmas music to help things along. But it’s just not getting it! Why? I have no idea. What I do know – I need to get on with it, or there will be no gifts for the family and I don’t think that will go over too well with the little ones!!!

So in an effort to get my mind and spirit in line with the holidays I’m going to list a few things I’m thankful for (yup, there are many bloggers doing this same thing!), some are serious some are silly, but I’m thankful for all of them just the same!

1) My really great hubby! Thank you for your constant love and support! Love you Baby!

2) Pilate’s class – so I don’t have to work on the weight machines all on my own!

3) The Fresh Market’s Peppermint Cream coffee! Oh yummy goodness!

4) Date nights with for-mentioned hubby to eat sushi! So yummy and low in calories!

5) Thoughts of my sister and mom going wedding gown shopping the day after Thanksgiving! Hate to miss it, but know it will be SO MUCH FUN!

6) Friends

7) Kohl’s

8) My funny, high energy, always ready for something fun children!

9) My mother in laws pecan pie! (I’m gonna work extra hard at the gym today just so I can have a slice of that gooey goodness!!)

10) Children who sleep all night long!

And one last one…

11) Blogs of family and friends near and far!

OK – so that’s a kinda weird list, but even now I feel better! I have so much to be thankful for today – and every day!

John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life!

And just a few pictures to remind me of all I have to be thankful for…

Just bein' honest

Having smaller children (cause mine aren’t small, small anymore – but still small enough!) isn’t an easy job. I know this isn’t news to anyone who’s ever had children, but I thought it was worth restating before I continued on.

The reason I say that – and I’m just gonna be gut level honest here – is because yesterday I did miserably as a mom. And honestly, I don’t think I was even a nice person yesterday, but I know I did badly as a mom for sure!

Very badly.

I have lots of excuses as to why I didn’t do my job as I should… Avery was up in the night, several times (which she hasn’t done in months!!!), Luke started the day with a yucky whinny attitude, and it was cold and rainy out – AGAIN! I guess I too started the day on the wrong side of the bed.

But none of those are good excuses! My kids don’t know that it’s hard for me to be kind and loving and patient when I don’t get enough sleep. They don’t know - nor do they care – that after several weeks of eating right, and massive amounts of exercise that continuing on the path to thin-ness isn’t what I wanted to do (and it’s exactly that attitude that got me in the position to need to lose weight to begin with!)! They don’t know that after a couple of days of cold and rain their mom wants to do nothing but snuggle up in a warm blanket with a good book and read all day – which with two younger children just doesn’t happen! And none of those things are their fault or even reason for me to not be patient and kind to them.

Again, none of those are good excuses for the way I acted toward my beloved children yesterday. I yelled when I should have spoken with kindness and understanding. I acted out of frustration in not being able to get “important” things done around the house when I should have sat down and read a book to them. I let my humanness parent instead of letting my Heavenly Father parent through me.

Yes, Reagan that's how Aunt Holly felt too!

All of this came to me while sitting in a dark room waiting for Avery to calm down – again – when the Holy Spirit urged me to pray… out loud for both Avery and myself. It was a humbling time for me for sure. I parented badly and it took until almost 8 PM to realize I was doing it. That made it even worse!

But then Avery did calm down, and we had some wonderful moments with the Lord and with each other, and I was again reminded of God’s unending love, His new mercies, and His patients with me. I asked for forgiveness and He wiped the slate clean in order for me to start new today. Isn’t He amazing?!?!

So today I’ll be doing better – but not on my own – with His strength and love for me and for my children. I’m so thankful that God forgives me and loves me enough to shower me with grace and mercy!

Hebrews 4:16
“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Spending Money

Here at our place we’ve started trying to teach our kids the importance of money. How hard it is to earn it, how long it takes to save it, how important it is to tithe it – that sort of thing. Now, since we’re no “global economy” over here and since Luke is still 4 and Avery just turned 2 – our lists of chores that earn money are somewhat limited – but that’s OK cause money still gets earned!

The kids each get $.50 for feeding Jane. I know that seems kind high for the amount of work, but it just happened that way and it’s hard to give your kids a pay cut. This used to be solely Luke’s job, but as Avery gets older she just knows she can do everything her big brother can do, and so she wants to feed Jane too and earn her quarters. So she does.

The kids also get a bit of help from their grandparents who save their change and then divide it among their grandchildren. It’s great fun for Luke to count the coins – although there have been some breakdowns due to the fact that he doesn’t really understand the changing of 4 quarters to dollar bills and that those are the same. He really just likes quarters, but he's learning!

All of this money saving, spending and tithing has finally gotten Luke to the place where he had enough money to buy something he wanted REALLY bad!!! GeoTrax – what are GeoTrax you might ask?! They are a wonderful FisherPrice remote controled toy train that you can check out here if you have children who are still the age to play with trains!

So yesterday we counted out all of Luke’s money – changed the quarters for bills – you should have heard me trying to explain how it’s really much easier to take bills to the store rather than a whole pickle jar full of quarters – and headed out to Target (Luke’s new favorite place to shop!) with Luke’s $77 to buy some brand new GeoTrax! What a glorious experience!

It was fun for both of us I think. He wanted to put the boxes in the cart, and then put them on the belt at the checkout, and he even counted out the money (with a little help) and paid the check out girl! Our check out girl was very patient with him and I think she was enjoying herself as much as I was watching him!

So now we have our first set – you can get them all, the sets attach to each other – of new trains. Time to pack up some of the Thomas the Train stuff and put it away in the attic or send it on to some of our “friends who don’t have any Thomas stuff!” This will make room for the new train sets!

Kinda makes me sad in a way – he’s loved and played with that Thomas stuff for many years now – I guess he’s growing up!

Eating right and exercise – that’s what you gotta do to lose weight, and let me tell ya, it’s no fun! Well not NO fun, but not a lot of fun! The exercise is getting to be more fun… well maybe not fun, but it’s more enjoyable than I thought it might be when I started out on this venture.

My goal is to lose 25 (or maybe more – we’ll have to see) pounds before our anniversary trip in late September of 2010. In order to achieve this goal I joined a gym and have been going faithfully since the day I joined. Also, the Winslow’s have “gotten back on the eat right wagon.” This has proven to be the harder part of the equation. I guess that’s part of the reason I’m in this position to begin with. I like food… and honestly for me – sweets and cakes and that kinda thing (except ice cream) isn’t really my problem, carbs are my problem - carbs in the form of pasta to be exact. But my wonderful hubby and I are making an effort to watch what we eat, and keep up with our calorie intake each day!

Then a few days ago I hit a snag… a Mexican food craving snag… oh boy did I have a hankerin’ for a lunch special #2 (which at most of the restaurants in our area means a chicken burrito with rice and beans as the side… YUMMO!) some chips and salsa and a BIG GLASS of sweat tea. The reason I so badly wanted this way too high calorie and high fat meal – I was starving! Yup, I let myself get too hungry and I wasn’t at home at lunch time and I was just starving. I was right there at the restaurant – so close to the chips and salsa… but I resisted – it took all I had and lots of prayers but I resisted. I came home and ate something healthier, but I was in a kind of weird funk for the rest of the day. It seemed that on top of the HUGE food craving, being really tired makes you wanna eat bad for you foods too! So I went to bed early that night! I woke up the next morning in better spirits and ready to get on with another day of eating right and getting in some good exercise!

I’ve been thinking a lot about this “new lifestyle” and all that goes into changing all the bad habits a person builds up over the years. And here are a couple of things I think I’ve learned:

1) Eating right isn’t very much fun, no matter what the already skinny healthy people tell you!

2) Exercise isn’t very much fun – unless you like to sweat a lot and have a very sore body!

3) Getting heavy didn’t happen overnight – so neither will getting thinner!

4) It’s a lot more fun and easier to stick to when your wonderfully supportive husband is on board as well!

5) Pilate’s isn’t so bad after the first class – and I’ve got a great instructor!

6)Kickboxing is HARD, but you burn lots of calories and you are encouraged to hit something – and hit it hard!

7) God wants me to be healthy.

8)I’m gonna look great by the time we go on our - yet to be determined 10 year anniversary trip – NO MATTER how many times I have to give up a lunch special #2!

Park Party

We had a wonderful time visiting Nanny and Grandpoppy this past weekend!

The weather was beautiful, and we had a "park party" to celebrate Avery's birthday! It was a good time for sure!!

I will be posting pictures from the party later today. We will also be having a "dinner party" with the other side of the family this Friday evening! It's the birthday that lasted a week! Gotta love more than one party!

But for today - it's off to get the little people dressed and ready for preschool and grocery shopping and Pilate’s class for Mommy!

Really, all I wanted to do today was sleep in!! Oh well! In the words of my Pilate’s instructor – if you wanna see change, you have to do things differently! So exercise it is!

2 Years

It's hard to believe it's been 2 years since our baby girl joined the Winslow family! Here are a few pictures of her ove the last 2 years! I cannot believe looking back how fast it's gone!

Just hours after she was born

Her first Christmas

First Easter

First Birthday

Now...

This year at Halloween

And tomorrow we celebrate another year! And I'll be thanking God for Avery and her health and what a wonderful, fun and exciting blessing is to my life every day!

On a rainy day

Today is a double whammy for us at the Winslow house… it’s Wednesday which usually means school and Lunch and Fun (that means an extra hour for Mommy), but since today is Veteran’s Day there is no school for the kiddo’s today. And here’s the double part – it’s rainy! Great!

I’m not unhappy about the rain in and of it self – over the past several years I’ve learned to be thankful for the rain, since there have been many seasons that have been drought conditions, I’m happy to have the rain! But it makes it hard when it’s cold, rainy AND it’s supposed to be a school day! O how my outlook on days off school has changed since I was a teacher! I used to love a day off… now – I wish there were less of them!

So what to do with 2 small children in the house again today – on our second rainy day of the week??? I know first we’ll go to the gym – I’m working up the courage to try a kickboxing class – something I’ve always wanted to try – and after that my choices are these:

- Do a simple craft (as anything too complicated scares me!) which I’m worried will turn into crayon all over everything – cause you know we DON”T use markers!!!

- Watch a movie with the little people (which means maybe Cars and hopefully NOT Dora?!)

- Hope Avery takes a good long nap (since she’s been up basically since about 5AM)

- Let the kids have their way with their toys, the house and each other while I go for a long walk in the rain.

OK – so that last ones not a real option, but it sounded good at the moment and at the moment Luke was chasing Avery with his big tractor (compliments of Mr. Chad) and she was screaming NO and running away crying, oh did I mention Luke was making a shooting noise while driving the tractor?!?!?! See how that last option has some appeal?

This is how it starts - trying to be cute - and it falls apart and ends in yelling and screaming! But they are cute!!



But – I’m gonna look at the bright side, cause things in my life are really great – we’re all healthy (Avery’s fighting her pre-trip yuck but overall she’s good), David has his business which is going well, I have a really wonderful house, I want for nothing, I have two healthy, energetic, happy children and my husband has to be the best guy on the planet Earth! What more could a girl ask for? It’s gonna be a good day!

This is the day the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it!

A New Me

Don’t ya love that title? Usually, that’s not the kind of thing you hear until after Christmas – right? With New Year’s resolutions and all that, people wanna get rid of some of the holiday weight they’ve put on so they join a gym go until March and then quite going altogether (I know, I speak from experience!).

But I’ve been trying to make some big lifestyle changes over the last several months. I started with consistent daily devotions. I even hate to call it that, it sounds so “church-y”, but whatever you call it – I’ve made a point to get my rear-end out of bed before anyone else in my house gets up. Now, if you know my precious Boy – you know that’s a feat in and of itself… but many days he goes and plays on the computer, so I’m pretty much alone, and he knows that Mommy is up “reading her devotions” so we have a good working plan!

With the Lord’s help and a renewed deep desire to be in the Word, this has been working pretty consistently for about 6 months now! It’s become part of who I am part of my daily routine and I miss it when I don’t get it in! Now there are mornings I don’t! If one or both of the kids are up in the night, I just cannot seem to get up before them, but overall the Lord has been faithful in helping me wake up and get my quiet alone time with Him and as a result I’ve grown a lot!

The newest thing I’ve added to my “new life” is exercise. Yup – the gym! OH JOY!

Honestly, I really hate working out! It’s hard ya know! Most of my childhood and even into my young adult life I didn’t really worry about my weight. I was very active in gymnastics and ballet and my weight was never an issue – although I knew that one day it might be – I never worried about it. Then I hit my early 20’s and all that metabolism I’d come to count on all those years seemed to stop. Although I’m not sure it was the metabolism as much as some life style choices (but that’s a TOTALLY different kind of post – maybe even for a different kind of blog!), but either way it slowed down and I put on weight. I also pretty much stopped any type of exercise.

Now, that’s all changing. I’ve joined a wonderful gym that’s a ministry of the church it’s attached too and I’ve gone every week day since I joined (which was a week ago today). Every day you ask?!?! Yup, ever day! David assured me that every other day was good as well, and I told him my thinking was this: one day either the kids or myself will be sick and I won’t be able to go, so I should get to it while I can and make it a habit now so it won’t be so hard to start back when comes a time I cannot go each day.

Do you wanna know the best part about going to the gym (cause it sure isn’t the sweating I’m doing)? The kids love, love, love the child care room! I don’t know what it is, but they love it and I’m so glad! Luke actually cried last week after being there an hour – he DID NOT want to leave. I’m so glad they like it and I know they are being well cared for. It makes it a lot easier to get them going with me in the mornings if they know they get to play once we get there!

At this point, I don’t just LOVE to work out, but I am happy with the Pilates classes I’ve taken - even though I’m SURE the instructor is trying to kill me - and I’m happy knowing that I’m taking better care of myself and teaching my children the importance of keeping active and eating better.

I’m also remembering my goal – in September of 2010 David and I will take our 10 year anniversary trip (we still don’t know where) and I wanna be to my goal weight by then! Cause I’m gonna have to get new cloths for that trip anyway, might as well get smaller ones! *smile*

A Cultural Experience

Last evening we had the privilege of feeding some new friends! David works with – at one of his clients – a couple who are here from the Ukraine on a work visa. They are a young married couple who work as in the technical side of business.


Since they are far, far, far from home – this is their first time ever to the US - we wanted to open our home and make them feel welcome and let them have a taste of “real American” family life! I really don’t know what that means for most Americans but for us that means lots of excitement when Daddy arrives home, a bunch of chaos until dinner, dinner, then more playing, yelling, joking, pillow fighting, bath time and then bed time! So we wanted to share this with them! I hope we didn’t scare them away!

I really enjoyed hearing about their lives back home and their culture and all the differences. Their country borders Russia on one side and Poland on the other and Belarus above them. It was very interesting to hear their comments about their government and how different it is from ours. They shared a bit about how their government works. If you think we have it bad you are mistaken! They were telling us that sometimes their political leaders actually get into fist fights!?!?! Can you imagine? Although the more I think on that – maybe it would solve a few issues for some of our folks and they could just move on to more pressing issues…





The neatest thing for me from the evening was seeing where they live on the internet – they used one of those on-line map things to show us their city and even their actual apartment building! It was way cool! That of course and listening to them speak… their accent is totally cool!

At one point during dinner we were talking and Luke looked at David and said “How do you even know what they are saying?” Which caused us to laugh, and David quickly told our guests that Luke was asking how we understood them. We told Luke they were speaking English and he just had to listen closely. Our guests then proceeded to tell us that they have a hard time understanding children here as well. So it seemed fair and I don’t think anyone’s feelings were hurt!

All in all it was a fun evening and I think good exposure for our kids – who often don’t see anyone but me and their Daddy in a day! Maybe there will more of that in the future for us!

The world is so big – yet right in a neighboring town are folks from the other side of the planet! I loved having them here and hearing about their world. I want more of that for me and my family! And maybe I can even learn a bit of Russian in the process!

Quiet

In my so small daily world of cleaning, laundry, lunches, diapers, increasing craziness and chaos - seemingly by the minute - I have tried to find small ways or things to help me remember that somewhere out there - there is calmness and peace and serenity, at least I keep telling myself there is. Please if you have five extra quiet minutes in your daily life relish it for me, would you please?!?!

Anyway – here are a few pictures that I took while spending a few quiet moments with myself and my Jesus… they are not only beautiful, but they help me remember the good times at the beach as well as the greatness of my Lord!

I hope you enjoy them as much as I have!

Psalm 8:1
“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.”

Big Daddy Weave - Let It Rise

Let the glory of the Lord rise among us
Let the glory of the Lord rise among us
Let the praises of the King rise among us
Let it rise
Oh, Oh, Oh
Let it rise

Cowboys and Angles

This year for Halloween the littlest little Winslow’s donned their costumes and we visited one house in our neighborhood!









Don’t worry – we took them to First Wesleyan’s Costume Carnival as well! There they got to play games, win candy, bounce on the bouncy things and have a good time! We didn’t even have to worry about the weather!













Since Nanny and Grandpoppy were here for the weekend, we left Nanny at home to hand out candy to any trick or treater’s that should arrive before we got back home. She had a quite a few, but we got home in time to hand some out as well. I’m pretty sure our Woody had more fun running top speed to the door to hand out candy than he did collecting it at the Carnival.

Maybe next year we’ll just dress up and stay home to answer the door! Hope you had a fun, safe Halloween!