Learning to be Content

I’ve opened up a couple times about some of the anxiety I’ve experienced since having Finn. Well, it’s been six months and a lot of those anxieties haven’t gone away. In fact, I still don’t always feel like myself. I’m getting a glimpse of my old self here and there and try to fake it a lot, but oftentimes I struggle with mild postpartum depression, which I know is very common, so I’m not too concerned. I try to remind myself it’s just my hormones and other chemical imbalances, but a lot of is gets into my head and creates low self esteem. So, it’s been months of this, right? And I’m trying hard to deal with it and figure out how to “wake up” in a sense.

There’s a saying a lot of people say in our church, that if you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward. It a lot of regards, that is a good motto. We need to continually be striving in all aspects of our life.

But there gets to a point where we may just be too hard on ourselves. Expecting too much. If we are constantly telling ourselves we need to be more, doing more, it can weigh us down. I realized I’m so hard on myself as a mother and as a wife. I would find myself crying at the end of the night because I felt like I hadn’t been the best mother that day. I felt that my kids deserved more. I’d compare myself to other moms.

So, I guess this is where the idea of contentment has come up. Learning to be content so I can be happy. How can we move forward if we don’t even like where we are today? We’ve got to learn to be content with our current lives and our actions first or else we are never going to be happy. It’s good to have goals, work towards something. But the goal can be as simple as: live today as well as you can, be happy with it, then move on to tomorrow.

We watched a movie the other day (it was edited for TV, so usually it’s an R but it was a TV-14) called About Time. If you have a chance to watch this on TV (like if you have the FX app) then do it! I don’t want to give it all away, but basically the guy can time travel. He can go back to anytime he wants and then also hop back to regular time with the changes he made. Quite convenient, right? If he had a bad day, he could go back in time and fix that specific incident. But after time traveling he realized it kind of took the authenticity out of life so he finally figures out a way to be content with his actions without time traveling. It was such a motivating movie (I don’t watch R rated movies, but I’ve heard this one unedited for TV is still worth seeing…) and made me realize how I can’t go back in time, obviously. So, I just need to be happy and stop wasting each day thinking I didn’t do good enough. This is where I am right now. Be content. Or else these days are going to pass by and I’ll wonder what happened to them.

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Home Movies

If you recall, one of my resolutions this year was to take more videos and then organize all of them. I’ve been doing well taking more videos, but still hadn’t done anything with them. Well, I finally took the plunge and am going through all of them!

It’s been quite the process. I first organized all of my videos into different folders, divided by year. Then highlighted them by month. Each month (or season if there aren’t many), I compile them into an iMovie and then upload them onto YouTube once complete so I have an online version just in case anything were to happen to my external hard drive. I eventually want to burn all of them onto DVDs, but that will be a project for a later month. I’m almost done with 2015 and it feels so good! Plus, it has been really fun to see how much Eva has changed, even within a year! I’m so glad I’m making myself do this because I love watching old home movies of mine and TJ’s childhood, and I didn’t want all the videos I take just to go into a crazy mess, deep on my computer, never to be seen again!

I’m sure you all want to watch hours of footage of me and my family, so I’ve created a new page for the videos up on my menu. JK-I know you probably don’t. But I did want to keep them organized for my own sake!

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WWJD

One day this month I was having a really hard time with Eva. I don’t know what has been going on with her lately, she’s such a sweet girl but she has been really trying my patience. So, on this one day in particular, we had a big fight. Probably because she just wasn’t listening. JUST LISTEN AND OBEY. I swear I say this 250 times a day, and probably 500 times on this day I’m describing.

Well, in the middle of the yelling, (LISTEN AND OBEY! … I MAKE MY OWN DECISIONS … YOU ARE ONLY FOUR … back and forth, you get the picture), I just called a time out pretty much and said, “Okay, let’s both take some big deep breaths.” We turned on Curious George for a couple of minutes and sat on the couch together. While she was immersed in the show, I was overwhelmed with incompetence as a mother. I feel this way often, but this time was so intense that I just didn’t know what to do. How was *I* supposed to be responsible to raise these children? I feel so lost sometimes when raising them. I feel like I’ve got an idea on how to parent and then it backfires. I come up with one discipline system that works for like five days then she’s totally over it. How do I discipline fairly for a four-year old? What is going to work and actually teach them a lesson? Is spanking too harsh? Do time-outs do anything? HOW THE H-E-DOUBLE-HOCKEYSTICKS DO I TEACH A STRONG-WILLED FOUR YEAR OLD TO LISTEN AND OBEY? AHH!

So, that was how I’m feeling, sitting there on the couch while tuning out Curious George. My mind started wandering. Thinking of new approaches. Then I saw a picture of Christ in my room. News flash: I instantly started crying. I started thinking of our Savior and our Heavenly Father, but for the first time in my life (why is this the first time I ever considered this?) I asked myself how THEY would parent a strong-willed four year old.

I brainstormed some examples in the scriptures on our Savior’s attitude, how he dealt with others, how he handled difficult situations. At first I thought of His forgiveness towards others. Christ is our ultimate example of forgiveness. So, try and forgive Eva….? Well, most of what she was doing was just being a typical crazy four year old. I guess I could try and not take it personally? But that still doesn’t solve the problem on how to discipline and teach my child to listen.

I thought of some more examples in the scriptures. We know He was kind, understanding, compassionate, but also, there was that time when He got pretty upset with the people selling things in the temple, which they shouldn’t have been doing. So, does that mean I can lose my cool sometimes when Eva purposely disobeys rules?

Since that afternoon I asked myself those questions, thinking of the attributes of our Savior and trying to relate them to parenthood, I keep thinking about it. Honestly, every time Eva drives me up a wall I keep thinking about it. Really, I haven’t come up with a resolution. It’s something I am still pondering. I’m trying to read the scriptures and for the first time ever, read them with the perspective of a parent trying to teach her child to obey. It’s hard. And I guess I’m writing this post to ask you all what you think?

If Jesus came over to babysit (and I mean this question in the most serious way because we should always look to Him as our example), how would He discipline Eva if she would not listen and then acted crazy/hyper before bedtime? If you have an answer for that, PLEASE comment. And then tell me how you think it relates to us. I know there’s not just one way to teach our kids/discipline/etc. I also know that God loves each one of us more than we can imagine, so we should teach with love, as well. But there’s got to be some sort of example from our Savior on parenting in those difficult times. Sorry for the rambling… just trying to get my thoughts out here!

FYI-Eva is so great, and I love her dearly. Overall, she acts great… we just have our moments, as all parents do. I don’t want you all to think I’m child-shaming her!

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Daily Life

Eva wakes up around 8. TJ gets ready for work, gets Eva breakfast and sets up a TV show for her while I embrace the last couple minutes of extra sleep until Finny Babe wakes up.

Finn wakes up somewhere between 8-9:30, depending on his night. I nurse Finn, get some breakfast for me, share it with Finn, then we play upstairs for the majority of the morning so I can get ready for the day and get the kids bathed and clothed. Finn plays on his play mat, swings in his swing, jumps in his door jumper thing, until he’s ready for his morning nap. At this point, it’s either time to go to school/dance/music class so he gets his nap in the car, unless we don’t have anywhere to be and he gets a real nap in his crib. If it’s a crib nap, then it’s work time for me and Eva usually plays pretend (currently she’s got the baby bath tub out with sand toys out pretending she’s at the beach in a boat), reads, dresses up, or plays with her castle.

If it’s MWF, Eva goes to school, and I usually run errands or come home and clean the house, do laundry, etc. Sometimes I even let myself have a nap. Glorious. If It’s T/TH, we have co-ops set up, and try and meet up with cousins in the afternoon. I have to get out every day. Even if it’s just for a Sonic/Target run. That’s why it’s been so nice to have warm weather because we can go to the park for hours. I can’t wait for the summer when the pool is open again.

Once we’re home from school/co-ops, some days we run errands or we come home and get some things done around the house. Finn will take another nap in the afternoon and then usually a little half hour snooze before dinner time, at which point we are counting down the minutes until TJ gets home from work. He walks every day to and from work and usually gets home a little after six. I try and have a dinner ready at that time, but a lot of times we can’t wait that long to eat since I want to get the kids to bed by seven, so we will eat before he arrives. After we have all eaten, it’s upstairs we go and then we tag-team it with the kids to put them to bed. Usually we switch off with Eva each night. She’s pretty good about going to bed, but recently she gets soooo hyper before bedtime, which makes things a little harder. We have started using a bedtime sticker chart though which encourages her to do what we ask. Usually both the kids are down a little after seven, I treat myself to a well-deserved diet coke, pick up around the house, clean up from dinner, then finish up work items and we get caught up on our TV shows on Hulu. Most nights, if I’m not in bed by 9:30, I will fall asleep on the couch downstairs. Being a mom of two has REALLY worn me out. Usually, I’m a night owl. But with these two babes, I can’t wait to go to bed each night.

It’s not much. But it’s my life. It may seem simple to some, but raising two children to be smart, strong, and Christ-like is not as simple as it may seem.

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Provo City Center Temple

A couple weeks ago, we got to walk through the new Provo temple. Eva even got to go with us and kept saying how much she loved the “wedding rooms.” She was displeased, however, that she had to wear white slippers over her shoes. It was a beautiful night and I kept thinking about this blog post by Nie Nie while walking through the temple.

To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of theLord, that he might be glorified.  -Isaiah 61:3

 

January-February Photo Dump

I’ve been trying to play catch up on here since November. I was going to post about my new years resolutions and a look back on 2015 but I’m skipping past those and moving on to life in 2016. The first week of January was great since I was at home but then when I got back to Utah, we all got colds, viruses, and coughs! I’m pretty sure we got every cold possible, but finally are on the mend.

Here’s a glimpse of what we did these past couple of weeks. If you’re on instagram, sorry for the repeats!

  • Thanksgiving Point Farm

    We had a warm day this week, so I took the kids to the farm. It’s amazing how a little sunshine can brighten up life!

  • Play-date Fun

    We visited my friend Erin and the kids wore these funny/cute hats!

  • Redbox Kindness

    We’ve been catching up on movies and one of them last week had this note with a $5 bill inside!

  • Saturday

    One Saturday in February, I met up with some old friends for Brunch to celebrate Galentine’s Day, then we celebrated Baby Reese’s birthday, and to wrap up the night we had a date without kids to see the movie Brooklyn.

  • Jersey Friends

    We had dinner with some old friends from Jersey!

  • Curiosity Museum

    We went to the museum at least three times and set up a play group at the church where Eva got to ride her bike.

Resolutions

I’ve thought long and hard about my resolutions this year. I’m not going to share ALL of them with you, but here are seven.

  1. Give love and be loved.
    • In my marriage, to my children, friends, and family.
  2. Live in present, stop living in the past.
    • This means to stop crying every time I see a scene of NYC.
  3. Take more video.
    • And then organize them!
  4. Don’t stress the small stuff.
    • And remind myself that most of it IS small stuff.
  5.  Go to bed before midnight.
    • Preferably at 10:30.
  6. Lose 25 pounds.
    • Tone it up!
  7. Although it sounds cheesy, let my light shine.
    • Smile, be optimistic, and share my testimony.

I’m rereading The Happiness Project again (I like to read it each January or whenever I get in a rut). If you want to get your life in order and set some good goals, I definitely recommend that book!

The Winner of the Giveaway is…

Margaret Wiss! Thanks for entering, everyone, and thanks for partnering up with me, Laura!

I’m having one more giveaway starting next Sunday with Lolly & Pop, so make sure to check that one out!

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Let Him In

On Monday, I was so lucky to see the amazing Forgotten Carols show with my in-laws. I absolutely loved it. I had no idea that Michael Mclean was actually IN the show, along with his son and his wife! So neat. I was familiar with the music but had never actually seen the play. It really touched me and made me want to focus on the Savior this Christmas season. After all, that’s what it’s all about.

“Yes I did believe them Though I’d not seen a thing
I did not go to Bethlehem Or hear the angels sing
But there was something magic In the air
That made me feel as if I had been there

I knew that as the world moves on through time
There would be more stories just like mine
About the souls who’ve chosen to believe
In something that they never got to see

Do you think you’ll join us Though you’ve not seen a thing?
You were not there in Bethlehem To hear the angels sing
But if you feel the spirit In the air
Then just like me you’d know

That He was here, He was here
The King of kings, And Lord of lords was here”

He was born, so we can be born again.

When I watched this video, I couldn’t help but to think of the many people in the world who have lost their way and turned away from the Savior. Sadly, I have seen so many close friends in the last year lose their faith and drift far from peace and happiness, far from God. And honestly, I would be lying if I told you I haven’t had my own minor faith crisis in the last year when I’ve seen so many struggle. I’ve really had to figure out what I believe. Examine where I stand. Hold on to the basics to get me through the doubts. And what I’ve come to realize is that it all comes down to Christ. My Savior, my Redeemer. I have a testimony in Him. I feel it in my heart, no matter what my mind might be saying. No matter what the world might be saying. He lives and was born so we can be born again. After that, it all falls into place.

So to you, to you who is struggling. To you who just doesn’t know anymore. To you who is lost in this dark world, hold on to this:

“He understands you. He heals us. He can bridge the lonely gap between God and man and bring us home if we let him. If we love him. If we follow him. That’s why we celebrate. That’s why we sing. And that’s why he was born.”

Just open your heart. Let him in.