LATE but my reflection on Hearts at Home.

So Hearts at Home is the conference for Mom's mostly Christians to meet and pretty much work on being a better mom and wife. So since I stay home and even though I nanny my primary job is to be a wife and mother of course after a Christian. I was really amped up for this conference and to be honest there were some awesome portions and some not so awesome portions.

So I will reflect in the order it happened.

The first part of the conference was the opening speaker which is Jill Savage. She founded Hearts at Home and is a great speaker. The conference spoke about not being a perfect mom. I read her book, identified with it, enjoyed it. And learned from it.

The talk in itself was pretty much a recap of the book so a little repetitive however teh cool part was there were moms telling their stories about how they are imperfect mothers. It was humbling. We all make mistakes, we all do silly things, we all can be better.

At the end of the first speech or lecture or whatever it is called there was a time you can text things you want to commit to so that you can be a better mom and not expect perfection.

I sent in about realizing Andrew is not perfect and neither am I.


I am not the perfect mom so why do I want Andrew to be the same exact parent as me?

Once those texts came on the screen probably about half were about the same thing.

Then I realized I am not the only one who thinks it is harder to be a wife than a mom.

I am not saying I have an awful husband he is wonderful.

He works full time, he is never late to work, he works really hard to be the best Chemist he can be. He is probably the smartest person I know. He is not afraid to be goofy with Landon or me. He wants the best for me always from everyone. He really is my rock.

The problem that comes in for me is I want him to love me like I think I should be loved.

Like when I think it would be sweet for him to bring me home flowers and he does not I get so mad that he did not know my thoughts or think it as well. What a petty thing to get mad over.

I want him to want to do the dishes...(Anyone else think of "The Break Up")

Seriously what person in their right mind enjoys the dishes, I hate doing them, why wouldn't he?

Pretty much I expect him to know everything I like and how I want everything done and not do a thing the way he wants.

No not really, I would go crazy if I married someone like me.

I am a stinking mess!

The real problem is that I really have no idea at all what I expected or wanted.

The conference helped me to see that.

Well anyway onto Session 1. Let It Go.

Well I lad to let it go lol. It was about being a control freak.

I went in thinking well I am not that mad.

WRONG AGAIN!

I am a grade A manipulator.

I get what I want however I have to get it.

The worst part is, Andrew told me this all the time and I never believed him.

Well Andrew I believe you. lol. And really this killed me.

Andrew has so many great ideas. He can be a great leader and he is a wonderful man. Why can't I just trust him?

Well let's say I am still working on this everyday. Even today Andrew had to tell me that I was manipulating, and then I got mad and then realized he was right and thanked him for telling me and we worked through our conflict without raising voices and with controlled tempers (for him at least I am still working on it.)

After I left there I wanted to be like Andrew do this this and this. I restrained. ''

So teh second one was about being organized. I am not a clean person.

I hate cleaning. I have a sink full of dishes right now just from me and the baby and the only reason it bothers me is because Andrew will not be happy when he gets home and sees it.

Well today is my day off so normally I would go get up and do it but well I am off today Yesterday was Easter and I have been going non stop so today was my day to do bare minimum. Wow what a difference if you ask me.

Well anyway I got some tips. Unfortunately they were not very helpful to me well because I hate cleaning and don't want to put them into play. I know I am awful. I like organizing but I need someone to do it with me. Any takers?

So then it was lunch. If you go bring a lot of snacks definitely not enough food.

Then the next one power of parenting preschoolers. I went to school for early childhood so this one I was hoping for more of a biblical approach since I went to a secular school.

It was nothing I did not already learn. Probably helpful to other moms though.

The last one was loving your husband toward Christ.

It was good, speaker was kind of meh but It did help reinstate he has his job you have yours. You both need to do them regardless of what the other is or is not doing.

Then Candace Cameron wrapped it up with her testimony.

I can honestly say that I enjoyed the conference but I was expecting more. I think since my son is under 1 and my issues were more a marriage thing I would probably have benefited from a womens conference over a moms conference.

What really has hit me since was reading The Real Marriage Series by Mark and Grace Driscoll.

Reflection on that to come soon. It has changed our marriage though. For the good, well amazing.

OOBLECK!!!!!!

First I want to say that I started this blog wanting it to be about stuff I have made from scratch and it has slowly turned into fun activities with my little guy. There will be things from scratch and my hearts at home reflection but we just made oobleck today and had so fun I have to share this now!

So Oobleck what is it? It is a made up creation from a Dr. Seuss book . BARTHLOMEW AND OOBLECK.

As a past daycare teacher I remember making all these cool and ridiculously messy things with the kids and wanted to start doing them with my little man.

Well so this is how it started.

Yesterday I was making cheese sauce from scratch (recipe will come at another time) and it called for corn starch. I kept thinking I really need to make oobleck with Landon. So today I woke up early got some stuff done and was ready to get messy.

So I laid down an old shower curtain to pick up the mess because I figured he is almost 11 months it will get everywhere! Landon thought it was cool he kept looking at it and was confused what was going on. I did it in his high chair since he is a walker and i thought he would have gotten it everywhere. We did the activity right after breakfast (hence strawberries on the table) and it seemed to work great.

Then I got to work on the mixture. I am not really one with recipes but I remembered from daycare ideas its cornstarch and water. I was told equal parts but I am me and just poured until it felt right. (Yes I used my hands and it got messy!)

Well I thought it would be a great idea to put it in this bowl. I forgot how little his arms are and well we had to put it in a different container.

Goodness that took forever (getting the pictures right, not the oobleck). So in the last pic he looks like is getting a little tired of it so we spiced things up! Here comes....a wooden spoon!

 

Boy did he love that spoon. He beat the oobleck with it , ate off of it, and shook it like crazy!

If you don't want a bigger mess I would not recommend the spoon. 

My goodness! He loved when mommy joined in the fun!

And then it got really messy...

The last picture was when we were done since he started trying to throw the container of oobleck. 

The clean up took about ten minutes and a bath. Not too bad for awesome memories with your child.

Also, I had all ingredients in my house, and we are reading the book through the week. 

We will experiemnt some more through the week with the oobleck ( I saved it). 

I love how God shows himself. While we were playing with this oobleck I had a sense of peace. I have been waiting for that for a while. 

God calls me to be home with Landon, I love it and I am trying to make it the best experience for the whole family. 

Easter Party reflection

So this blog will be crazy like my life :). I love staying home and working with my son, trying new things in the kitchen and helping others with their kids. I can not say that I am perfect at any of these or really even that I am an expert but I have fun learning along the way. There will be funny things and serious things. Interesting things and probably venting but that is life and we are living it. Let's enjoy it. Do I expect anyone to read this, well yes my husband he encouraged me to write it. But besides that if you find it and enjoy it, awesome! Well here goes:

So I wanted my first blog to be about the noodles I made from scratch. Took pictures of each step, tried to make it blog worthy. But let's be honest I am too excited about the fun things that I did today!

Today was the Easter Party that I threw with my friend Lindsey M. We talked and plan fun activities for the mom's to do with their children. I expected a few moms to come like usual but there was a great turn out.


I love having the core group around, to be honest I still don't know all the names but I know the faces and how conversations go. They are always uplifting.

It was nice to have other moms there too.

I made sure I went out of my way to introduce myself to people and to try to make them feel comfortable, even though I was not comfortable.

I was in charge of two different crafts:

One making chicks out of foot prints
Awe look at my little man's foot. He is getting so big and his foot reflects it.

I was so concerned mom's were not going to want to get their kids all dirty and boy was I wrong! Mom's loved this. There was a line, everyone wanted to do this. There were little feet and big feet, kids who smiled and and kids who cried. Some thought it tickled, some thought it was yucky. We all got to experience it together. It was so fun! I was even privledged to paint a three month olds feet and they were so tiny I almost cried.

The other craft I was in charge of was making bunny masks. Those were not as much of a hit. I explained them poorly because I was shaking but I digress.

Anyway there were other crafts that were done too. There was creating bunnies out of english muffins and fruit and pretzels etc. Older kids really loved that.

There were great snacks and desserts for all the kids and adults.

And the conversations were great. I feel like a lot of moms liked being able to get out for so many reasons. Some just to see that their kids are not the only one that cries. Some to see another mom trying to handle multiple children. The part that I loved the most was the joy you saw on almost every child's face. They were all just taking in their surroundings. Some kids came up and talked to me. Some moms opened up about things to me. The conversations like I said, were great.

Really makes you think.

We ended up in Clinton because I did not want to live in Decatur with a child. Decatur never felt like home. Clinton is different. I know we live in an apartment, and I know we can leave at any minute. I am so grateful though for where we are now. That I can go to church and Landon knows the kids and I know some moms. That I can run into people I know in the grocery store and they say hi. That I am not afraid to let landon sit with another mom while I hand out treats.  Not a single one of these things cost money just time. I love that. We live on a budget we try to save while paying our bills and school loans and this kind of happiness is free.

I love how God planned this for me. I love his timing, I love his way.