Computer Glitches

The strangest thing happened the other night. Russ had forwarded me an article entitled, "What if I had stayed in the workforce?" written by a stay-at-home-mom. It was an interesting article, for sure, but since my time in the workforce was brief and random at best, I've never struggled with the issue of staying home to raise my kids. The crux of the article, though, wasn't necessarily about that, but rather finding your worth in the Lord. Not in the work place. Not in motherhood. Not in anything or anyone but Christ. And this, of course, is a message we all need to hear repeatedly. Midway through this tiny post, she started a new paragraph with these words:

There is no better path to discouragement than to look within ourselves. Instead we are to look to our Savior.

I read the next two sentences. They were the same. Followed by more of the same. Again and again, those two lines repeated themselves. I called Russ over to see if this was how the article read. At first he didn't even notice what the problem was, but then he assured me that his didn't do that. Some kind of computer glitch had printed those lines over and over again, and when I tried to scroll down to get to the end of the post (which was only about 10 more lines), I couldn't even get to it because these two lines just kept appearing and pushing everything else further down.

There is no better path to discouragement than to look within ourselves. Instead we are to look to our Savior.

This came to mind today as I was driving to Costco with all three girls in tow. I was tearing up just thinking about never having any time to myself and how I have to take the girls everywhere with me. I was thinking about how I would have to load and unload them, fit all of our goods in the cart with all of them crammed in it and somehow keep them from opening each box, cracking the eggs, and fighting over the snacks. I remembered how messy the churros were last time and thought about not getting each girl one, but then wondered how I would even get around the store without some kind of distraction for them. The cart is heavy to push. I am 6 months pregnant. My back hurts. I am out of breath even before I start shopping. I get weird stares from people. There's really nothing about the shopping trip that excites me. I mean, its a warehouse for crying out loud! And an under-air-conditioned one at that! Some days I even get frustrated with poor Russ thinking to myself, 'sure he has to work all day, but I work all day too and I have 3 kids to tend to while doing it. He's not pregnant. He's not lugging three kids around while trying to shop.' On and on and ON! So yeah. I was going down that road this morning and then I remembered the two, never ending sentences from the article.

There is no better path to discouragement than to look within ourselves. Instead we are to look to our Savior.

Thankfully, I had filed that thought away, thinking that maybe the Lord was speaking to me. I started to pray. Just little short prayers, pouring my frustrations out to the Lord. It was a wonderful 15 minute car ride. Miraculously, the girls didn't call my name once and I just talked to my Savior the whole way. And yes, we ended up having a pretty smooth trip, but that's not the point. The point is that I am very drawn to not only look to myself for all of the answers (that's only one layer of the sin), but to obsess about all the things that are affecting me, me, me. I've been battling discouragement a lot lately in all sorts of ways. One day I'll be frustrated about my sugars, the next I feel like I don't have any friends and am not doing enough to attract people to myself. After that I'll be annoyed with how I handled something with my kids or my husband. I'll start making charts, graphs, lists -whatever it takes- to organize the craziness and all the while I'll forget to utter one prayer asking for help. At times I buy into the lie that I have the answers and can save myself (even in these little, daily disturbances) and I remain discouraged.

There is no better path to discouragement than to look within ourselves. Instead we are to look to our Savior.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory in Christ Jesus! We don't have to stay in that place! Pray without ceasing! Pray about everything! Not in a formal, disconnected way, and not just for smooth Costco trips, but with a posture that says, "Father, I need you for everything. I need you for big things and small things. In fact, I can't do anything by myself or for myself, but You promised that I can do all things through You. Give me a desire to connect with You about everything, Lord." Perhaps this is what it is to truly commune with the Lord constantly. Start praying about your shopping trips. Start praying about your kids. Start praying about your health. Start praying about your crappy attitude. Even if it is a one-sentence-on-the-go type of prayer. Start believing He wants to hear about it!

Instead we are to look to our Savior.

The Lord speaks in such funny ways sometimes. He can even use computer glitches to get his point across. I'm so thankful he reminded me of his truth over and over again and today I hope to look to my Savior all day long.

Pregnant lady with all the kids strikes again

This time one of the workers gave us bakery hats. The girls loved it and actually kept them on for a while - especially Ya! See how they're all squeezed in there? What are we going to do when brother comes??? :)

Baby Brother

Well, baby brother is 24 weeks along and not wanting to cooperate for any pictures. In most of the shots he has his hands in front of his face, so this is actually the best one. Isn't he sweet? I love him. The good thing is he's measuring 50th percentile in weight, which is average and not yet huge. The bad thing is they've been wearing me out with appointments. Today was a blessing though, when the doctor wanted to see me in 2 weeks rather than 1. Thank you, Lord! I'll take it! Please pray that my sugars get better, that I'm disciplined with my eating, that I change the rates in my pump when they need to be changed, and that I stay aggressive with it. I am feeling very discouraged by it all lately. It is just so constant and it will only get harder as the baby gets bigger. It feels like I am never doing anything right, which is a heavy weight to bear. Quite honestly, even if I was doing everything perfectly, it would be tough to keep up with, so I think the only way it will get better (i.e. where the OB's want it to be) is through prayer. So please say a prayer for me and baby brother today!

Get in the Picture!

I read a blog a few months ago that challenged parents to get IN the pictures with their kids. I thought it was a great idea and I really don't think I have too many pictures with each of the girls. Obviously, it is less than motivating to take pictures of yourself when you're constantly changing in size and wearing the same maternity clothes you did 4 years ago. And then you have to actually remember to take the pictures and have cooperative participants. Challenging! But, tonight before the girls went to bed, I was like, 'what the heck. It has been a long day and I have on weird make-up and the girls are in the pj's and blah. blah. blah. but lets get some pics!' I'm happy we did it. We need to do it more.

Parents, are you getting IN the pics with your cute kids? Honestly, when we look through pictures with the girls, they are the most excited about the ones with Mommy and Daddy. I think they would rather see pics of me and Russ than themselves! So, I'm passing the challenge on. And just in case you feel like you have to get all done up before the pictures are taken, here's our results from tonight:

Mommy and Ya Baby. She was wild tonight!

My Noa girl. She was the most cooperative, so we have more shots with her than the other two wiggle-worms.

I'm so in love with this girl!

And my Ruthie Joy. Tough to get a picture of her without Hooie's tail being in her face, but mission accomplished!

What a blessing these girls are. Sorry, brother. No pics of the belly tonight. I know I need to just to keep record of it, but I'm so over it! Maybe tomorrow...

Lydia!

Now that I've given you two weeks to figure out who that picture looks like (unforeseen blogging break!), we think it looks like Lyd! Points to Irene for matching up Ruthie's Easter photo expression with the Olan Mills pic, but overall, we think this looks like Lydie. I couldn't really find a picture to illustrate that though, but trust me, this is Ya with darker hair! More posts to come. Just had to complete the circle on this one... finally... ;)

Olan Mills

Found this old picture of me and Chris today. Olan Mills really captured a happy moment for us, didn't they? I'm sure my mom was annoyed that I had to take my blankie (apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?) and that somehow Chris managed to get a nasty scab under his eye before these pictures too. Anyway, any thoughts on who we think Little Jackie looks like?

Noa's First Daddy Daughter Date

Someone texted Russ today and said they had 2 free tickets to see Kari Jobe tonight. I didn't feel like finding a sitter and was kind of tired, so after a few minutes of thinking about it, Russ wanted to take Noa! Perfect! This was her first daddy/daughter/date experience. It is not often that we get to spend alone time with our kids, so Russ was soooo excited to go.

Noa kept fidgeting with her dress before they left. She said she wanted 2 ponies and kept calling it her date hair. She kept saying she was going to "rock it out." :)

Just found out they were going to see Kari Jobe!

Grabbing a bite to eat before the show - chicken fingers.

According to Noa, this was the best part of the evening.

But her date wasn't so bad either...

Earplugs to protect the future worship leader's ears (tissue)

Met some friends... (Noa has never/will never meet a stranger)

They were on the first row but decided to move to the balcony because it was so loud and she ended up liking the balcony better. Evidently she was more mesmerized by her milkshake and all the people than she was by Kari Jobe. Typical 4 year old...

All the while I got to spend time with this cutie. This was her "I'm so happy I got chocolate milk at Jason's Deli" face.

And this cutie. This isn't a picture from our night together as it was getting difficult to corral both of them and take pics. Actually, the night started to go south (in Jason's Deli at least) as Ruthie wouldn't stop getting up from the table, Lydie wanted nothing to do with her meal, and I kept having to go to the bathroom. What a date! We decided to get out of there (after everyone was completely covered in the free ice cream) and go to Target to get popcorn and shop for an outfit for baby brudder. No popcorn! They were out! Cheetos to the rescue. Found a few little shirts and then it was definitely time to go home, get a bath and go to bed, all while Noa and Daddy partied the night away. Russ has M.A.N.Y dates to look forward too. At least he gets a break with this last little buddy. ;)