Dont Blink

Oh my goodness! How is it even possible for me be writing that my baby is 6 months old!?! It is just crazy that this little bundle

has already grown to this little dumplin

My little boy is too much for my heart. Having a boy has definitely been a JOY to this momma. I feel so thankful to God for the opportunity to have the experience of raising a daughter and a son and the gift of seeing how delightfully different the two are!

Here are some tidbits of Carsten at 6 months old:

You are a very loving little boy, especially to your momma. :) You want to be cuddled and held almost all day...which makes for not much getting done around the house..haha

You are very nosey. You want to know what is going on at all times.

You DO NOT like to be left alone for even a second. You will do almost anything to get someone's attention like screaming, making loud noses, cooing, ect. It is the cutest thing and usually makes me giggle :)

You take 2 naps a day. A short 45 minute nap in the morning and a long 2 hour nap in the afternoon.

You sleep mostly through the night with a random bottle at some point in the night.

You love baby food and you love it when momma lets you have a bite or two of something mushy off my plate.

You can sit up unassisted and love doing so.

You can roll from front to back and back to front!

Your favorite toy is your interactive puppy and your rattling ball.

You wear size 3-6 months clothing but are moving into more 6 months clothes.

You wear a size 3 diapers.

You have the cutest patch of curls only on the top of your head and your momma and pretty much everyone else thinks it is the cutest thing ever!

You are a true joy to our lives Carsten! You are the perfect piece to complete our family and we are looking forward to watching you grow and develop into the little boy God has designed you to be!

A glimpse of my crazy

I have people fooled! Or maybe I think I have people fooled. On the surface, I may appear to have it all together or to really know alot about alot of things but....here's the truth.....

I'm a hot mess sometimes..more like a lot of the time...I mean a true HOT STINKIN MESS....

My day to day is often a regular rollercoaster of emotions and my poor, sweet family has to ride along with me willing or not....{a good ole southern "bless there hearts" would be appropriate right here}

My new favorite blogger, Glennon from http://www.momastery.com/, must have come from the same bloodline somewhere down the line because I READ myself in soooo many of her lines almost daily. I have never laughed so hard as when I read her recent blog post "Home to Myself"...I have borrowed a bit of her post below because in this portion of her post she might as well have been writing this about me:

"I come from a long line of dramatic Irish personalities. We are an emotional bunch – my family. Our highs are high and our lows are low. We love easily, but we cry and yell easily, too. We are quick to hug and quick to anger. Now I know that you won’t believe me, because I am so sweet and calm on this here blog. But that is because no one in my house is awake yet. After people wake up, I tend to get dramatic. I often struggle through the day. Trudge through the day. I have to take a lot of deep breaths. I experience joy, too, everyday. But I am not the type to roll with things. I get very down – for reasons that I can never identify. I decide, thirty times a day, that no one in the history of the world has ever had a harder life than I do. When I say this to God and He brings homeless people to mind, I actually think, well – at least they don’t have to SWEEP.
I also worry. Worry, worry, worry. Obsess might actually be a better word. Not about the plight of the Sudanese…I TRY to worry about things like that, but I ACTUALLY worry about whether I chose the wrong throw pillow for my new couch. I snap at my kids for acting like kids. I resent them for getting hungry three times a day. And even though I don’t believe in mommy guilt, I feel guilty all the time. If I could choose a phrase to describe the polar opposite of my personality, it would be “easy-breezy.” As a matter of fact, I call Sister daily crying and whining and I CANT DO IT ANYMOR-ING and I always end the conversation with “Whatever. I’m easy-breezy, Sister.” And she says, “I know you are, Sister. I know you are. Me too.”
Sometimes I get so upset that I become debilitated…I’m talking crumble to the ground, tears, head in hands… the whole she-bang. My break downs appear to be brought on by one little thing… like a grocery bag breaking in the driveway - and so Craig will say, “It’s okay honey, it’s just a grocery bag,” and I’ll say: “IT”S NOT A GROCERY BAG! IT’S EVERYTHING! WHY CAN’T YOU SEE IT’S EVERYTHING???” And I don’t want anyone to try to fix it or fix me - I just want to be upset. I just need to be upset for awhile. Because life is upsetting, obviously.
I’m just A LOT to deal with on a daily basis. And I know this. I do not cruise through life. I sort of crash through life. But I also “WOW” through life, too. And so it’s okay. I’ll take the lows with the highs. Basically, I really like myself. And I think I’m an awesome mom. God chose ME for these kiddos and He knows me better than anyone, so I’m gonna be myself. My kids don’t need some fake idea of a perfect mom, they need me -Glennon, the real person. I get that."

I read this portion of Glennon's blog to my husband just so he could see that his darling wife was not the only one that still has melt downs and crying fits over absolutely nothing...and he laughed and smirked. For Glennon it was a grocery bag that "was the straw that broke the camel's back" so to say, but for me the other day it was the steamer bag I couldn't find (that may or may not have been right where I put it) that sent me to the couch crying...

But like Glennon, I'm OK with me and my occasional dramatics and hysterics..lol...I am a REAL person. I am a little bit crazy.I have learned to look back and laugh at myself and to ALWAYS thank and apologize to my family who are regular spectators to my "crazy" but love me anyways! I am always learning...learning to pray my way though the "crazy" instead of dramatic crying on the couch...haha... and....

I am ever thankful that God made me just the way He wanted me to be.crazy.and.all! :)

Satan is a LIAR!!

Has Satan ever lied to you and tried to convince you that this isn't true?

His evilness has been trying to make me believe that one (ok maybe like 14) bad day means my life is horrible. Im not even gonna lie...there was one day in particular last week that I LET him win.  I have been battling the CRAZIEST most ANNOYING health issue that has NO cure or explanation and bad news about it last week led me down a path of negative thinking. By the time I finally got a hold of myself, I had convinced myself that I had the worst life ever...which is sooooo not true!

You know what is real and true? The ONLY way the devil can win is if we let him! Life is going to be filled with health issues, disappointments, people letting you down, money issues etc. etc. and these things are never going to change or go away, but what can change is our attitude....and boy am I having to remind myself about this right now. So....I am choosing to praise my Savior in this storm! I am thanking him that my health issue is not life threatening. I am choosing to thank Him for his love and for his provisions for my family. I thanking him for my PRECIOUS husband and my PRECIOUS children! I am choosing to thank Him for the PRECIOUS friends I have that have been soo encouraging and who have lifted me up when I feel down. And the list could go on and on...

So, one bad day, week, month or even year DOES NOT mean that your life is horrible. Its just a season and in EVERY season God is with you and wants to work in you and through you if you'll let Him. Beloved, I pray you let HIM!

I adore this song and thought it so fitting for where I am right now