follow through

When I lived in LA and was in my home turf with plenty of friends, I often told people I'd meet....let's have dinner or coffee sometime. It's something a lot of us do casually with the best of intentions, but really we know we may not have the time or interest at all.
Since I have moved to 2 different states and have been that "new" girl looking for friendship, I hung dearly to the words "Let's do lunch". What I found was that so many of us say that and so many of us really don't follow through. I was let down again and again waiting for plans to work out to have a get together and no matter my attempts or patience, I came away from many acquaintances sad and let down again. After all, I was really in need of some friends.
Recently, I met a mom from Jay's basketball team. She seemed so nice and friendly. Once again I heard "let's get the kids together". I really liked her and hoped she really meant it, but I knew better than to get my hopes up. A couple weeks passed and she invited me to lunch. Then I got the phone message that there was a time conflict. Instead, of the easy thing to do - cancelling, we moved our lunch a bit later. Yesterday, I made a new friend over sushi and am overjoyed that she really wanted to get to know me. I was so happy that she did not just talk about possible future plans, but we actually did it!
May this be a reminder to myself when I meet a possible new friend to not just talk about possible plans, but to really make them and follow through!

nabz games

In honor of the olympics, the kids have been enjoying playing our Nabz Games. We do things like a sack race, 3-legged race, bucket ball and whatever I can come up with really. To prevent fighting I had them compete for their personal best time. After all, we have the 5 year old division and 3 year old division. Not only has this been great excersise, but it keeps them busy! The cool part is when I have to leave the games, they continue to play making up thier own creative games. If you have not brought the olympics home to your kids I suggest you do and come up with some wacky creative games to share! :)

patience

I have never liked someone telling me to WAIT! I think I have been bred to be the most impatient person ever. I tend to find myself always rushing and sometimes I don't even need to be. So the obvious thing I am always faced with is waiting. I had to wait until 18 to have a license and car, 21 to have my first boyfriend, 24 to get my dream job, 32 to get out of AZ, 33 to have our first house....the list goes on and on. God must be thinking when will she learn already??? After all, He always answers my prayers in one way or another and it's always been perfectly timed as He has planned. (in the past I have tried to make things happen on my own and have failed miserably everytime - it's not recommended!)

So while I have found myself impatient again about getting back into music ministry I know it's best to wait on Him. It's been years since I have done anything more with music than dust my piano and sing the ABC's. I have such an itch to do music ministry in some aspect, yet it's not time. My season is here in my home with my kids (I need to nurture thier spirits) and with my community in meeting any needs presented.

If, since i'm getting older by the second, and when God wants me to do music ministry He will make a way. So although it's hard to wait, I will embrace this season I'm in. There are lessons to be learned and character to be built in me that I don't want to miss. God open my eyes to see what you have for me right now in this moment. Slow me down and help me to stay present while I look ahead. And thank you God for being patient with me!

content

Someone mentioned to me awhile back how content my baby was when he was with me. I thought, well, ya i suppose he would be since I do everything for him - right? It seemed obvious since I was his mama. Shortly after God reminded me of that moment when I got some news....

Back in December my baby boy went in for his 4 month check. As I assumed, I had a very healthy thriving boy and all was going great. Then I mentioned to the doc that one side of him seemed a little fatter than the other. I chuckled saying i think it's cuz I nurse him on one side more than the other and gravity has it out of wack. He investigated quietly and did not entertain my poor joke attempt. He mentioned something about the possibility of Hemihypertrophy. So he recommended we go to children's hospital for further analysis. (My stomach and my wheels are now turning and you can bet I was online researching what this was as soon as i could)

Hemihypertrophy in summary is a genetic disorder where there is an enlargement (5% or greater in width and or length) on one side of the body or just a body part. The scary part is that Hemi is often linked with other syndromes that are not good, as well as there being a risk kidney or liver tumors which grow very rapidly.

Finding all this out had me so worried and anxious. Then God reminded me that I needed to be content in Him, as my son is content in my arms. So I let myself mentally climb up into my Father's arms and as I remained there close to the one who holds our every breath, He filled me with contentment, peace and a calm. I did not know the outcome, but everything was ok in the arms of my God.

Come January and we finally get to children's. Prognosis is 3 possibilities. Completely normal, Isolated Hemihypertrophy or Neurofibromatosis (NF). Long story short since we can not rule out the hemihypertrophy we must follow the protocol in checking for tumors every 3 months for the next 8 years. And as they confirmed something we did not want to hear, we were THANKFUL!

How can we not be thankful for so many reasons? First, we were in Children's Hospital and if you ever want a reminder of why things are not so bad in your life, just go there and see all these precious children with terrible illnesses. My heart and prayers go out to those families! Second, my baby will live a normal life and may be only his wife will ever notice his small differences. Third, if he does get a tumor, while scary, the success rate is high in removing it with full recovery.

In all this, I am so reminded that our children are a gift to be treasured everyday since we do not know what tomorrow may bring. And in that daily unknown I have a God who I can trust to make me content.

we have pets!

It all started a couple weeks ago when I was reading a magazine while getting my haircut....
In the mag I read about people owning tea cup pigs. (Pigs seemed like a good idea for us since our girl is allergic to cats and dogs) I thought it sounded cool and when I got home I mentioned it to my husband in front of the kids (MISTAKE!!). I thought I would do some research on it to see what they are all about.
Long story short: the pigs do not stay small like cute little tea cups and we are not zoned to own pigs. Regardless, the kids have been wanting a pet for sooo long and they were devastated that we were not going to have a tea cup pig, which I never by the way said we were getting in the first place! So in order to get my 5-year-old to stop sobbing we went out and bought 2 beta fish. The blue one's name is Jacob and the purple-pink one is Care Bear. It all worked out in the end and we all lived happily ever after!
PS - notice the orange counter tops....yup they're still orange! :)

love notes

My oldest son can be the biggest handful ever; however, deep down he is really the sweetest guy! He likes to write, draw, color pictures, make cards and anything to show his affection towards me and Jesse. Many a nights we will come to bed to find a sealed envelope addressed to us with a precious note inside. While he can not write all he can communicate, we know every etch of it is done with love. My favorite thing is to take pictures of his notes so we can keep them forever! After all one day when he is grown and on his own I will look over these love notes and they will so warm my heart.
SO big boy i thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Fum,
mom :)

temporary insanity!

My husband and I finally got out of the house last weekend just the 2 of us.(which does not happen like ever!) After eating a nice lunch we decided to run into a furniture store for fun. We walked in and saw the walnut, brown, leather sectional couch, with ottoman, of our dreams ON SALE! Our wheels started turning.....and before we knew it we were talking to a salesman and actually buying them. I was freaked out, but excited - did we just do this????
It was not long before I thought - what did we just do. Buyers remorse sat on me like a brick and I thought about it all night. See we do not have cash to buy it. We put it on a credit card. My husband does sales = feast or famine. I know financial famine is coming. So sadly the very next day my husband called and cancelled the purchase. Sometimes it's hard to make the right decision, but i'm glad we did. And let's just say it was our temporarily insane moment of the year! :)