Trying to teach lessons...

Being a parent can be a scary thing. Sometimes it's the best job and sometimes I wonder how I'll do a good job for the rest of my life! Today something happened that just made me scared to be a mom.

My oldest, 7, is such a nature boy! He loves to catch butterflies, frogs, moths and dragonflies! Bees, however, is another thing. We've taught him (and our other kidlets) that if you leave them alone, they will leave you alone. We figured he would listen to us, knowing that we may know a thing or two! Not so the case today. Nature Boy thought it would be interesting to see what would happen if he poked a bee with a stick!!! Well, he found out. See below to see what happened!

I wanted to feel sorry for him...really! But we've told him to leave bees alone! Of course he's ok. And I told him I feel bad that he had to go through that pain. But I'm sure he's learned his lesson about bees. But what scares me as a mom is the fact that we try to teach our kidlets things, to keep them from experiencing the pain or hurt or humiliation from doing that one thing. But the thing is, they are still going to do those things just to be sure. That scares me.

We teach our kids that smoking is terrible!!! My daughter says she'll never smoke! Ever! We've taught her the bad things that ccould happen, and will happen, if they choose to smoke. But telling them this will probably not stop them from trying it, maybe not even stop them from actually partaking in the activity. Then this mom mind travels to driving, drugs, relationships, their faith! It's scary to me what could happen even though we've already tried teaching them about good choices for their lives!

I love my job as a mom!! And right along with my fears is the Lord holding my hand with His plan that I am blind to. I guess I just have to have faith that He is going to continue guiding me and my husband as parents, as well as guiding my kidlets, in our lives of so many choices. My prayer for my older two (who experienced this incident), as well as our younger two, is that sometimes it's not worth the risk to make a choice to see what will happen if Mom and Dad have already told them it wouldn't be a good idea!

My poor little guy, just being curious. Love you, Buddy!

Love Letter to my Husband...

So you'll have to excuse me for just today. Sorry.

Dear Bryan,

You are an amazing husband (and father)! And with Father's Day coming up I wanted to write you a letter.

You are so amazing. You are such a devoted Daddy. It's so fun to watch the kids with you, and you with the kids! There is a love bubble around you when you play with them! You have taught them so much about life in the few short years you've had a chance. They look up to you so much! I love it!!

You are a full-time medical student. You come home and still make supper. You help clean up around the kitchen and house. You need to find time to study, yet you give of your time as a family man. In the early morning hours before you leave you make this wife some coffee! When you come home from what could be a long day, you leave it for a while and bring calmness into our home. You bring a sigh of relief to me as you help with the stress level in the house. Sometimes it's so high we need binoculars to see to the top, so we can climb ourselves back down.

So that brings me to the next part of this letter. The part where, as your wife, I tell you you deserve so much more! You deserve to have someone who is what you're looking for. To have someone who is beautiful, both inside and out. I'm sorry that you have to look at this every day. Your eyes must hurt. You deserve someone with the same sense of humor as you. You deserve someone who thinks of others (to put on a garage sale and donate the money to a charity). You deserve someone who will let you follow in your family's footsteps and drink whenever you want. You deserve someone who will make you coffee (sorry I don't know how yet). You deserve to come home to a calm house; one that you can come relax in. You deserve to come home to a meal already prepared. I'm sorry that I don't give you what you so very much deserve.

I hope one day you get in return ten fold of what you give to me and the kids! I wish for you a fantabulous 2010 Father's Day!

Love,
ME

Skateboards!

So, we are trying to potty train our 2 year old, Alexander. He actually does pretty well! He was in big boy underwear on Sunday for the whole day until bedtime with only 2 accidents. And we even went on a drive up to Apple Valley and he stayed dry on the whole round trip!! But, in order to originally start getting him to wear big boy underwear, he only wanted skateboard underwear!
Are you kidding me!?!?!

Fine. I'll check Target. NONE. I'll check Wal-Mart. NONE. I'll check K-Mart. NONE! Really, I ask him. Yep! That's what he wants. Skateboards.

OK. Surely Ebay will have to come up with something for me. YEP! And here he is! Alexander and his skateboard underwear! I may actually have to find more of these. He does pretty good in them. Whatever works!!

Here are the infamous skateboard underwear!!

Cute butt! Cute butt!

Precious Moments

I feel these moments come few and far between...really. There are so many days where time just seems to fly by. But here I sit, doing two things I absolutely LOVE! Watching the Women's College World Series, Game 1 of the Championship, and cuddling with my Lil' Peanut!

In my mind I am thinking of the countless number of things I (dare I say it) should be doing. Laundry, kitchen floor, making our bed (which I will have to do anyways because my Lil' Peanut had a blow out on the other sheets this morning), putting clothes away, watching the Netflix movie that I NEED to watch and return, picking up the living room, exercise (which I really want to do, but won't while softball is on!), and so much more.

But then I have these precious moments that rule over everything...and that's cuddling with my baby!

Warm Spring Days!

I just wanted to post some pics of the kids having fun! Enjoy!

Pride

I have been taught not to be too proud of myself. I don't want to seem conceited and big headed. But there are times when I think I need to be proud of myself. And last night was one of those times!

I'm in the process of sort of training myself to get ready for a 5K. I find myself laughing at hearing myself say that. My family is not a family of runners...except for my brother, who is training for his 3rd (I think) marathon!! I have terrible knees and they just KILL when I run and when I'm done. And I'm terribly slow when I run, which is ok when I'm running long distances at a speed that I choose. I've never been a runner. But I think I may be hooked after just one night!

Last night my hubby and I decided to make a practice run of the 5K. He had already run it in the morning, but was sweet enough to run it AGAIN just to help me out. My goal was to run the whole thing without stopping. Turns out, I DID IT! My husband was a good encourager! Although I'm not sure I needed it. This time when I set my mind on running continuously, I meant it! I've been trying to lose a bunch of weight. And this is part of my weight loss plan. So this goal was going to be achieved! And I did it!

There were a couple things that kept me going when I was slowing down. Right before I left my little peanut was just a smilin' at me! I figured I would take this with me as went running, to help me keep my goal. Another thought I had was my kids. I want to be able to show my kids that their mom can do things...and not just clean and do laundry! I want them to know that if they try hard enough and keep with it, they can accomplish things that may seem hard! That kept me going! Last, was the little boy who I'm running the 5K for. He is a little 3rd grader who was diagnosed with cancer and had to have one of his legs amputated. I may not like running, but at least I have both of my legs to do it if I did. This precious gift from God will have to find other ways to do so many things. I'm doing this for him.

So for all these reasons, I'm proud of myself. I'm doing something for myself that is going to push me into becoming a better person. It's going to bring me self-confidence that has been lacking. It's going to give me more goals for this one facet of my life. And maybe, just maybe it's going to open my eyes to more activities and opportunities to allow me to feel proud of myself (in a good, non big-headed way)!

We've all been told to stop and smell the roses! But so many of us are so busy we don't have (or make) time. Well, I stopped to smell the roses the other night! I stopped to appreciate what God has blessed me with! And I'm so thankful for these 5 blessings in my life! It's the little things they do that keep me wanting to smell the roses.