A Visit With Terry & Veran

While we were in Texas for Christmas, we paid a visit to our friends Terry and Veran. Veran is also known as Grannie Verannie :) She is so sweet to always send the girls little gifts on their birthdays and holidays. We love her and Terry! 

Something else that I love is Greta's expression in all of these photos. She did not want me out of her sight! In case you haven't figured it out, Greta is a Momma's girl :)

The Snowy Day

As soon as it started snowing, Ava wanted to go outside. I laid Greta down for a nap and then bundled Ava up to go outside. When it was time to come inside, Ava started crying :( my baby loves the snow!

Greta's First Time To Cross The Mississippi River

We stopped to take pictures of Ava when she crossed the Mississippi River for the very first time, so we did the same for Greta :) It was a very windy and cold day. We left the girls in their pajamas since it would be a 10 hour trip to Texas. We wanted them to be comfortable since they would probably sleep most of the way (and it was a good thing too, because they did!) :)

Harmony In The Home

Let me go ahead and get all my disclaimers out of the way:

• I am imperfect.
• I have imperfect children.
• I have an imperfect spouse.
• I do not have it all figured out.
• I mess up all the time.
• I have regrets already about some of the things I have done as a parent.

Okay. Now that I have that out of the way, I can focus on the reason for this post. Back in August, I attended a lecture for stay-at-home-moms. It focused on how to achieve peace in your home. Six different women gave seven minute presentations on topics ranging from homeschool to Sunday morning routines. The main thing that all the presentations seemed to agree on was this: find a way to make your home a place of peace and happiness.

I wanted to share a few of the things that I have learned and have implemented in my own home. I truly have found that peace makes everyone happy.

1. Saturday evenings are a great time to plan out the next morning. Unless someone is sick, we attend worship every Sunday morning. This means that four people have to get dressed, have breakfast, and make it out the door (happy) on Sunday morning. I am very spoiled because my husband gets both girls ready for church on Sunday morning. He puts them in the car for me and waits for me in the garage. That is something that we both agreed on. My job is to get everything ready the night before. We pick a child to get bathed (I get one, he gets the other) After baths, he keeps the girls occupied while I re-pack the diaper bag, get clothes laid out, and clean up the wet mess that always accompanies a bath. When I lay out clothes, I make sure to include: bloomers, hairbows, shoes, the actual outfit, and a back-up in case of accidents. I also lay out the clothes that I will be wearing (including all accessories) When Sunday morning comes around, we keep breakfast simple. Ava has a breakfast bar and some milk in her sippy cup while Jeremy feeds Greta a bottle. After they are finished with breakfast, Jeremy is able to get them changed into their clothes and get them into the car. I finish my morning routine and meet them in the car. On the way to church we listen to some type of "Jesus Music" (that is what my 2 year old calls it) :) The Zoe Group is a really good a cappella group that we enjoy listening to. It really helps us focus on worship. Sunday mornings in our home are usually free of tears and tantrums. :)
2. To keep peace in our home, Jeremy and I talk about almost everything. If we want to go on a family date night, we will usually ask each other: "How is this going to work?" Since I am a planner, I usually have Plan A, B, and C already formulated in my head :) If we talk about what we want to do and how we want to do it, no one ends up mad. Jeremy and I end up with equal and fair amounts of work. I don't end up resenting him because I did all the work to get us ready, and he doesn't resent me for nagging him about helping me. I realized very early on in our marriage that he cannot read my mind. If something needs to be done in a certain way, then I should communicate that to him. I should never say to him, "you should have known!" God wired men and women to be different. Part of overcoming those differences is learning effective communication.
3. Just like any married couple, Jeremy and I have our fair share of disagreements. Before we had children, it was easy to just say what we needed to say to each other, wherever we were in our house. Now, we have to be more thoughtful. If a discussion gets heated or escalates in front of our children, one of us (usually Jeremy) will say, "let's wait until the girls take a nap so we can talk about this." It is so hard to wait! Especially if it is something that we are angry about. But, I will say that arguing in front of your children is one of the most selfish things that parents can do. It creates stress and tension. Yes, children need to see how to resolve conflict. But I draw the line at parents hurling insults at each other and making selfish demands. We are trying to teach our children to privately handle conflict. 

I have wanted to do this post for a long time, but I didn't know how well-received it would be. I am keeping in mind that my children will read this one day. I am hoping that they will be able to learn from this in case I never tell them. I had plans to talk to my children about everything! But everything is sometimes too much. I hope that my words convey sincerity of heart. Hopefully this post will help my girls to one day achieve harmony in their own homes. And if you are a reader of my blog and have chosen to read this post, I hope it helps you too! :)

Two Blessings...

A Prayer For My Children

My Dear Heavenly Father,

I come before You tonight thanking You for the privilege of being Ava and Greta's mother. I thank You for all the lessons that I have learned from this experience and I thank You for the love that You have shown me through these teaching moments. I pray that You would continue to give me wisdom on how to train and love my children. Please be patient with me as I learn how to be effective.

Lord, I ask that you would keep my children safe from harm. Please help me to see danger before it becomes a threat. Please help me to think while I am taking care of my children. Help me to think about what they are learning from me. Help me to think about how my treatment of them will affect how they treat others. Help me to think about the tone of voice I use. Help me to realize that the tone of voice I use with them will be their inner voice. Help me to not be too critical. Help me to not be too lax. 

Lord, I pray for the parents of their future spouse. I pray that these parents are teaching their young sons to love You. I pray that they are praying for us right now too. I pray that they are teaching their sons about purity. I pray that these boys who will one day hold my daughters' hearts, will remain pure and unstained from the world. I pray that they have a godly father in their life who will teach them to be good men. I pray that they have a godly mother who teaches them about gentleness and kindness.

Lord, I pray for my girls. You have entrusted me with one of the greatest responsibilities a person could ever have. Help me to not fail. I pray that if I do fail in some areas, my children will have forgiving hearts. I pray that they will learn to be forgiving by the example that I set for them.

I thank You for Your Son who died to give me freedom. Thank You for giving me hope.

In Christ's name I pray,

Amen

Ava's 2nd Birthday!

We celebrated Ava's birthday in December, on a Saturday when Nana, Poppy, and Bant B could come for a visit. Jeremy and I had an agreement before Ava was born that we would have a big 1st birthday and a big Sweet 16 party for our children. Every other birthday would just be a small get together with family. So, we stuck to our guns and had something small at our house. Believe me, I wanted to do something big. It is just in my nature to plan parties and other things, but we needed to follow through with what we said we were going to do. In the end, that is most important.

Ava and Greta both wore pink tutus (I guess you could call this a "two-two" party) :) I wore a pink cardigan and bought Ava a pink "Birthday Cake" cupcake from Gigi's Cupcakes. Jeremy has a special tradition that he started last year: every year on the girl's birthday, he buys a flower for each year of life that we are celebrating. So, this year he bought Ava two Gerber Daisies. One pink and one white.

As soon as Ava started opening presents, her clothes came off. I was actually unable to take a lot of pictures because she spent most of her party naked :) Every time she would open a new outfit, she wanted to put it on. In all, I believe she had 5 outfit changes! 

When it came time to sing the birthday song, Jeremy held Ava while I lit the candles on her cupcake. She had a little help from Daddy blowing out the candles. She took about two bites of icing and then threw her cupcake in the trash. No one was expecting her to do that, so there was an audible gasp when she opened the trash lid and threw it in! I wanted to save it and let her snack on it for a few days! Oh well, the best laid plans...

Ava received a lot of really good gifts. She now has some new clothes and some new costumes to add to her dress-up closet :) We had a great time celebrating a wonderful 2 years of life!