My Life Changed 4 Months Ago!

I am just loving being a mom! The Lord has blessed us with such a wonderful, beautiful, content little girl! She is growing and changing all the time! All you moms out there can probably relate! It is hard to hold them and view them as perfect but yet they are far from that! I pray constantly for my little Evelyn that the Lord would be working on her little heart even now! That one day she will love him with all her heart!

Evelyn's new thing is playing with faces! She loves to touch my face and hair as I feed her and most of the time I enjoy every moment of it! It is so exciting to see her learning/discovering the world around her! 

Along with that comes the grabbing cheeks and necks and back of arms when sleepiness or frustration sets in for her! I am learning the beginning process of correction and discipline. I am learning just how heartbreaking it can be on a parent to have to reprove their child(ren). Along with that, I am confronted with my natural instinct to react without thinking rationally! It is so much easier to say and judge other parents until you are one and you realize just how difficult it all can be! May I not let my feelings get in the way! Whether it be my compassion getting in the way of my discipline or my own feelings taking charge when I need to be thinking about what is best for the current situation! I know this is only going to be more and more of a challenge and that I have only experienced a tiny bit of this role of parenting!

Evelyn is so close to sitting up on her own! She tries so hard when lying down to sit herself up!  When you sit her up she can stay up for 20-30 seconds before she starts to lean in one direction or the other before she tumbles over. I am guilty of looking away for a split second only to find her face planted. :-/ She also loves to stand but obviously she is far from doing that on her own!

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This past week she discovered her tongue! And ever since then it tends to be out a good chunk of the time! It is really cute :-) Along with that she tries to do raspberries. She is not able to get her lips to rattle or roll so it kind of turns into her spitting every where! I was walking in a store and she was in her car seat in the cart and was attempting to do them and I felt spit from 5 feet away! I hope I never forget the focus and determination in her face when she does it! She is one dedicated little girl!

With the weather being so nice, we also tried her in the swing at the park! She seemed to like it! (It is often difficult to figure out if Evelyn truly does like something because she is not very vocal about things she likes or doesn't like) You could see her get a bit freaked out if the swing  swung too much. 

(Evelyn with her friend Asher)

Modeling Godliness to Our Daughters

“Are we models of purity to our daughters?

Are we making godly womanhood attractive to them, something they want for themselves?

How they view it begins at home, and it involves much more than the clothes we wear and the TV programs we watch.

It includes how we hand stressful seasons and how we relate to our husbands.

Everything we do reveals either a Christi-oriented heart or a self-oriented heart, and by all we do, we demonstrate to our daughters what we really believe holds value.

If we are careful to protect our hearts for Christ, we are going to be more careful of their hearts, as well.

Our choice to be faithful certainly doesn’t guarantee our daughter’s faithfulness, but we will demonstrate to them that God’s ways are always paths of peace.”

-Lydia Brownback, Purity: A Godly Woman’s Adornment

This is something I have been thinking a lot about!!! I am realizing the task that is at hand as I help to mold and shape my little Evelyn into, one day, a young woman! What will I leave imprinted on her little heart?


Is it...?

      ...worth is found in nothing other than the King!?

         ...a passion to be pure?

         ...a character with self control?

        ...a freedom from bondage of pleasing others instead of solely God?

        ...a heart and will that submits under the authority of God first and foremost but also her husband!?

Or is it...?

     ...worth found in man and the world?

       ...to care a less what she wears and says?

       ...a bondage to what the world says is "beautiful" and how others view her?

       ...a passion for lust and worldly pleasures?

It can be so overwhelming! As I know the words I say, the way I interact with Andy, the way I perceive myself and my God all are crucial into how she herself will conduct herself! We live in a world that puts such a focus on "beauty" and as women it is so easy to get caught up in that! Our daughters are watching and soaking up how we handle that! Are we commenting on how fat we feel? How much we at? That we need to work out? That our faces are getting wrinkled? Are we obsessed with how we look and what others think of us and our appearance! It is so hard to not get caught up in that! But as mothers we need to be very careful with this! We need to be bringing them up with the understanding that we are made in the image of God and that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made!" Break down the lies that media is screaming out to our little girls and bring their eyes to Christ! 

How are you treating your husband? Do you respect him? Do you debate him or argue with him in front of your children? Do you look at him in a way that cuts him down? Our girls will pick this up! They will begin to view him the same way you are showing her to! How you treat your husband will most likely affect how she will one day treat her husband! Respect him ladies! Love him! Serve him! Set the example NOW for you little girl and your boys!!

Are we worried about what other people say or think of us!? Are we trying to please man instead of God? That won't get past our daughters! They see it and they are soaking it in!

Is this 100% on us? If our daughters fall into traps is it directly our fault? No... the world is not our home and they will be affected by the passions of this world and their flesh, at times, will get the best of them! But that does not mean that God is not wanting to use us to make them into the daughters he desires them to be!

I, in no way shape or form, have this all figured out! My daughter is only 4 months old so I do not have complete wisdom in this area! And never will! But I do wish to steward the responsibility I have properly and I will continually pray for the grace, patience, and self control to set a proper example for my children!

The Same Earth But Not The Same World

Sorry I have not posted in quite some time nor posted my 366 photo moments of 2012. Lets just say... kids change things... and my brain just does not seem to work like it did before. I am much foggier than I was and my spirit has seemed to be quite quiet lately. 


Evelyn is doing well! Growing as they all do... but Evelyn is especially growing! She is now 17 lb 1 oz (exactly 9 lbs up from birth weight) and 25 in long (4 inches from birth). Not to mention a 16 3/4 in head! That is 99% for weight, 88% for head, and around 70% for length. What can I say! She is a good eater! She is doing really well at night! Typically goes down at 11pm(ish) and gets up 7:30am(ish) and will sometimes go back down depending on how tired she is. I am currently working on getting her down early but she is just like her mom & dad and is wide awake late at night! She is trying so hard to sit up and loves to stand (not by herself). Grandma Nancy just got her a saucer and she loves being able to see what mom is up to! She is starting to know when you have been out of the room for awhile and she will using start squawking to let you know she is no fool!! Andy & I are just truly blessed with her! We love her so much (as parents do.) A parent's love is just so unfathomable. I wish I could fathom it because I know it would transform my view of God! I wonder if God ever wants to hug us so hard that our heads would pop off... I feel that way sometimes! You just swell up so much over your child. So that is something I want to be praying for! That the Lord would continually use it to turn my eyes to him and open them to see how big He is and how much He loves us! I want to mull that over and just digest it and let it be what gives me energy and passion! 


I am currently going through the book "Created To Be His Help Meet" by Debi Pearl. Amazing book! I recommend it highly (so far!) She has transformed my view of what a wife is to be. What I am called to be! The Lord is using this book to open my eyes to see what Andy needs from me as his wife, his helper, his help meet. I am created to complete him... not the other way around. I am here to serve him... not the other way around! God created man and saw that it was not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18)! Staying home is no easy job and it can definitely be a barrier to understanding each other and each other's roles. It is easy for the man to expect many things from the wife and the wife in turn can feel overwhelmed and get defensive on the matter. This my friends, if you stay at home and even if you don't, is our jobs! It should also be our joy! It is not my job to tell my husband who he should be and what he should do. That is God's place. It is my job to provide a home for him and a place for him to   relax when he comes home from work. Is it his role to help raise the children... OF COURSE! That is a partnership and really he should be in charge of it even! Anyways... It has just been a powerful resource for me as I transition from being a working wife to a stay at home mom & wife! It's not as easy as it appears. I get asked often if I am bored yet... Not if I am doing what I should in making sure my husband comes home to a house of order and a child well taken care of! It is truly a beautiful thing and I pray that the Lord would continue to transform me a s a wife and mother! Evelyn is little now but soon she will be watching me very closely... what kind of impression will I leave. What kind of daughter, friend, future wife will I be influencing in her... It is an overwhelming responsibility!


I am being hit more and more with what kind of world she is going to grow up in! All of a sudden it is a world of woman empowerment, homosexuality being viewed as a civil rights issue instead of what it is... sin, view of family being altered. You see so much of how woman are becoming more independent of men! I heard an interesting view on this. They were saying why woman are having more children outside of marriage (carriage before marriage instead of  "then comes marriage then comes the baby in the baby carriage") because of not only the divorce rates in their parents but also because they are becoming the head & providers of the home as they are becoming the more influencing gender and they get paid more than men because of their value! There is something far wrong with that! Our men NEED that! They NEED to feel NEEDED! They need to feel like Prince Charming and Super Man! There is nothing wrong with feeding that into our men! I am just seeing the need at hand to instill things in my sweet little girl that are becoming far from the norm and I am beginning to ask myself... HOW!? I am feeling the desperation of the pressures around as we are beginning to feel the tide of the world become stronger and stronger. I am just praying for so much grace and wisdom in this! I praise God that he has set examples in my life to follow and people to go to for wisdom but most importantly His Word! I need his word! I am failing at feeding off of it and seeking him out! Please pray for me in this area! I need this for my daughter! For my husband as well!