new addition, new season

ok, so here's where this blog actually begins. all previous posts were some that i pulled in from my other blog, which is private...so most pictures and all names have been removed. i wanted to have all the highlights of our family life of traveling over the past 2 years. this past year, however, has been the hardest. because of a miscarriage and a pregnancy following that, plus a few months when the band did radio promotions and traveled by plane instead of bus (meaning we couldn't go--too expensive), i have been not touring for an entire year! (besides a one week tour in florida last december) this is very unusual for us, and not in a good way. i learned back in feb 2010 that  it was too hard to be apart from my music man for more than 10 days...but the circumstances of this past year just made it impossible to travel. and so we have looooong awaited the birth of our daughter, our second child, because it meant that we could get back to normalcy---traveling together as a family.

now that my sweet baby girl is here safely, we hope to get back on the road as soon as the band is back on tour.

right now they are songwriting for a second album, and trying to write a radio single to follow up their last one for pop radio. songwriting season is a fav of mine--every time he brings home a new song for me to hear i get super excited and we dream about all it's potential....i can't explain how insanely talented my hubs is. songwriting season also means that music man gets to be home more often. he took a month off for the birth of our daughter (2 weeks before, 2 weeks after) and i am spoiled now to the max. he just left for 3 days to do some shows up north, and so i am alone with my two kids for the first time. maybe God is just being super gracious to me, but it is going so well that i am actually having fun!

now he'll be traveling to NY, LA, etc to song-write with other artists....and i am oh-so-hoping to get to travel a bit too! first he'll go to NYC next week, during our 4 year anniversary, and so we are going to see if i can get up there too. ahhh, to dream. i will try not to get my hopes up too high. 

now that i'm 2 1/2 weeks in to life with 2 kids, i feel confident that i am capable of traveling with them. she is a dream and he is being so good (of course, he has his toddler moments, but for the most part, he's my angel). 

maybe that seems ambitious of  me, but that is the life that i am used to, and the life that we are committed to as a family.

another change that is coming to our family is that we have to move in the next month. we have had the joy of living with our friends for the past 9 months. 4 adults + 5 kids under 6 in the house. it was such a special season that we will all cherish forever. the other family is most likely moving to europe (oh the tears) and we will be living alone again. if you can believe it, we have only lived alone for the first 6 months of our marriage. plus, when we are on tour we live in a bus with 12 people packed in....needless to say, we are looking forward to this coming season of family time. i am anxious to find out what house God has in store for us. He always blesses us immensely! 

out at the park--just the 3 of us

happy summer!

plastic yuckiness

the sneaking suspicion that plastic might not be very good for us has only just begun. we all try to buy BPA free now, right? well now they are saying you should also search for EPA free. and now studies are confirming that ALL plastics (including our beloved BPA-free plastics) leak hormones that mimic estrogen. the list of harmful chemicals in this substance that we've sadly grown far too dependent on, probably goes on and on....

so in our household we've thrown away ALL of our plastic kids plates, bowls and cups and replaced them with stainless steel (glass and ceramic are too fragile to trust with little hands). we bought every kid this set

and so, i'm the first to admit, this is only the first, tiniest step. i would love to make our lives as plastic free as possible. and yes, i'm still guzzling my 80-100 oz of water a day from my plastic Camelbak. but i do plan to purchase Camelbak's stainless steel version as soon as i can! (yes, for all you Camelbak fans out there, i saw one at the store the other day!)

but the first steps i wanted to take where with my precious little love. the mother in me wants to protect my children as best as i can....i feel much better already:)

some day i would love to....

this is so inspiring! i would love to be able to make this my reality...

our baby girl

I am having a baby

GIRL

oh my goodness, how i did not think i would be saying that. i don't know how we got so 100% positive that we were having a boy, when there was no way to know, and we had a 50/50 chance either way, but we sure were positive.

now we are still getting used to the idea--no, the reality, of this beautiful little girl soon coming into all of our lives. i can hardly wait to see her face, to hold her hand. to watch my husband turn to absolute mush, and my son blossom into the big, loving, protective brother that he was born to be.

this little miracle is about to turn our lives upside down, in such a good way.

in fact, this next 5 months might just much too long to wait.

she is still very small (17 weeks), but here are some pictures of the video that we got to watch of her.

let's try this again...

there's a teensy weensy baby in there!

i am 9 weeks pregnant.

since, last pregnancy, i found out at 16 weeks that i had miscarried an 8 week baby, i contacted my midwife and asked her how soon i could be reassured that all was ok. she said that she could detect heart tones at 10-12 weeks, but that i could get an ultrasound starting at 8 weeks. so last week, i went to get an ultrasound, and saw the most beautiful sight: a heartbeat. and that fluttering little heart almost made my own heart explode as i cried tears of joy. and a weight lifted off of my chest, and i felt like i could breath again.

i never thought i could keep quiet about a pregnancy, but keeping this a secret for a little while was not hard. when we found out that we were pregnant again, we were excited and hopeful. i continually welcomed this new child into my womb, my body, my life. but both of our hearts were still too tender. we decided not to tell anyone for the first trimester, or at least until we found out it was ok. and so for weeks i kept to myself and felt a sense of dread and worry that was almost overwhelming. i didn't want to hear anyone's worries or concerns for me, because i had plenty enough of my own.

but a dear older lady told me that i had to deal with my fear and start celebrating this life that had begun in me. i have to stop saying "if something goes wrong" or "as long as everything goes ok" or "well, if i even have this baby". because regardless of the outcome, there is a life that has begun, that is valued by our Father, that is inside of me. right now. and i have to acknowledge it and celebrate it.

and that rebuke has begun to set me straight. after hearing that everything in there looks perfect and healthy and just as it should, we decided that our friend was right. we needed to start telling people and rejoicing in what the Lord has done for us. after i miscarried He gave me this promise: "..I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." (Gen. 28:15)

this summer was awful. i feel like i haven't even been here--anywhere--like i've just been floating through it. and i'm not sure where all that time went. it's just out there somewhere in the great abyss i suppose. so i apologize to you, my friends, if i have been distant--or completely absent. i'm getting back to my life again.

and i feel confident that this is God's promise fulfillled. i believe that i will have a baby in my arms in early May.

and i even think that it's a boy...

holding on and letting go (or, toddlerhood begins)

times they are a-changin' in our little nest. Our sweet, calm, chill, laid-back, always happy baby boy turned into a toddler somewhere in the past few weeks, and he is growing more and more into the role with every passing day.

now, i'm not saying that he isn't still sweet, calm, chill, laid back and happy. he is. but there are new sides to him now. one minute he is holding my face in his hands, belly laughing and giving me kisses, and the next minute he is screaming and hitting me in the face as hard as he can.

i do feel for the little guy. i know he is struggling to learn his emotions and properly communicate them. i know he is having to learn the hard lessons that sometimes the answer is 'no' and that the world does not actually revolve around him. i knew this was inevitable, this stage. every child crosses into this time period when their mind is advanced beyond their communication level. he just doesn't know how to fully express what his feelings are and what he wants. and then sometimes he can express what he wants, but i tell him 'no' and he doesn't know how to handle that.

one of his latest things that i am just totally stuck with is this: he gets completely obsessed with 1 or 3 toys for a few days at a time. he carries them around with him everywhere and he can't sleep without them. it's cute. until he gets in this mood. he'll hold the toy and play with it and then all of the sudden he'll throw it to the ground out of frustration (from what? i couldn't tell you), only to be, seconds later, crying and whining because he wants the toy. this goes on all day, and sometimes even all night in his sleep. i cannot figure out what is going on and haven't really clue what to do about it. (if you have any insights or suggestions, please leave a comment!)

my husband and I have both agreed that this next month off we are really going to have to get on top of discipline and get it under control. we need to get on the same page, figure out what style of correction and teaching works best for him as an individual, and work the kinks out...

but as these kinks are getting worked out--can i be totally honest here?--i've been hit with the realization that i am far from a perfect mother. far from a perfect person. i find myself frustrated more that i'd like, losing patience more than i'd like. i find that i am not always the mother that i aim to be. grant it, it is usually at night time when i am just exhausted and missing out on much-needed sleep (don't we all get a bit cranky when woken in the middle of the night?). these moments are actually few and rare, and maybe i'm being a bit hard on myself. but i know that, left untouched, these things can grow into monsters in my life and slowly turn me into someone that i never want to be--possibly without me even noticing it. these tiny evidences of selfishness must be dealt with now. i am learning to be more patient. to be very very very patient. and to control my feelings of exhaustion and frustration and loss of control. and i think that is the root problem here--that i need to give up trying to always be in control. the fact is that my son is a human being--a tiny little man of a human being, but an individual none the less. and we cannot control others. our children must be led.

and so my days as of late have been filled with a plethora of emotions-- intense love, holding tight, needing space, laughing, sighing, praising, disciplining, playing hard, napping hard, happiness, strength, uncertainity, scratching my head, tiredness and--one minute i feel strong and proud, like i'm possibly starting to get this thing right, the next i feel stripped and weak and completely helpless--but through it all, a LOT of love. intense love.

i so strongly love this kid, and this day-to-day life i live with him. i love learning how to love him, and how to gently lead him. i love getting to know him, and getting to know me. i so badly want to be the best i can be for him.

oh, the things this little man is capable of doing to me!

content

i have never been the 'content in all circumstances' type of person. I blame it on my personality. i've always found it quite fun to look ahead and plan out the coming seasons with the new and better things i'd be doing-- and the new and better person i'd be. you know, like "right now i'm just a nanny and i live in NC, but next summer i'm going to travel to rural kazistan and work with orphans who have no legs and no food, right after my mission trip to an unreached civilization deep in the Amazon. and of course i'm also going to take some college courses to learn web design and start a business on the side. and then i'm going to take some acting classes and might try to be in a movie and make it big..." you, know, that sort of thing.
if i had had a blog 5 years ago, it's one goal would have been to make you super impressed and/or extremely jealous about all the things i was going to be doing at a later time, regardless of whether i ever got around to them.

becoming a mother, while it was what i have always wanted, was a bit hard in the beginning because of this trait of mine. i'd find myself dreaming of all these things that i wanted to learn and wanted to be doing, only to come back to the present and realize--wait...i don't have time to do any of that! i have to change diapers and nurse and make baby food and do the laundry and empty the dishwasher and get dinner ready. and then i'd find myself feeling quite pathetic, like i had no worth. i mean, what did i even have to show for myself at the end of the day? what did i add to society? how were my plans to finish mopping the floors by the end of nap-time going to impress anybody? i avoided the conversations that i once loved--you know, the ones where I share about all these "plans" that I have and the things that I will one day do and be. even if it were as small as what i was going to be doing the upcoming weekend. and it made me feel cool and seem really interesting. maybe i figured if i at least one day planned to learn this or that, or become this or that, or do this or that, then it would justify the fact that i was not doing any of those things now. i always wanted to be something that i wasn't quite yet but possibly could be one day.
are you following me?
i remember when i moved to NC and i had just gotten married and i wasn't a mother yet. i was getting to know a girl who is now a very close friend. she had two small children at the time. i was having one of these conversations of sharing my dreams and plans. it's how i affirmed myself. i thought that it would make others realize my worth. i proceeded to ask her about her plans. was she one day planning to go back to school? to start a business? surely she needed a plan to look forward to, to feel useful. to feel valuable.
but all that she said was "no....i don't really have any plans or ambitions. i'm actually just pretty content in being a wife and a mother. i don't know--is that wrong?"

it was profound. i had never considered this possibility. this idea of just being content. and i realized that it made her a much happier person than me. all of my dreams and plans actually tormented me and just stemmed from insecurity.
so to her comment i answered, for the first time (and from the heart), "wow, i sure do wish i could be like that."

and then about a year ago a miraculous thing happened. it was so subtle that it took months for me to realize that it had even happened. i hadn't strived for it, i hadn't worked hard at it. i had barely even thought about it.

i became very content.

i am suddenly content in my role as a wife and a mother. the humble appearance of these roles disguises the fact that they are the two highest roles that we are called to in life. Jesus Christ of Nazareth did say that to be a servant was the highest position in life, and both roles are essentially that--serving. in being a wife, and especially a mother, a woman is given the opportunity to become more servant-like a little more each day. if one is cooperative, each day she will become a little bit less selfless, forget about herself a little bit more, put others' needs before hers a little bit more, and care about the useless things in life a little bit less. all we are asked is to be faithful with what we are given. what i have been given is a husband and a child, and to put anything above those two would be...well, sinful.

and while there are certainly still things that i want to learn to do and things that i one day aspire to do, i feel perfectly content about the possibility that those things may be years down the road--maybe 20 years. and, most importantly, i don't feel that because i can't do them right away that it makes me less valuable in society. i no longer find my worth in those things.

these days my conversations feel shorter and perhaps even a bit more awkward. friends ask "what's going on with you these days?" and the answer is usually the same as last time they talked to me-- "same ole, same ole." the things that are going on with me now have more to do with what changes that are occuring in my heart, or the latest thing that i am learning. or, even more likely, the latest thing my son is learning and the funny things he does. and i am ok with this. in fact, i wouldn't want it any other way.

i am truly and undeniably happy with being a mother. i believe that i have great value, and that my job is quite possibly the most important job that exists. i love it,
i love my life,
i finally love the person that i am,
and i especially love the person that i am becoming.