Our Love Story | When Did We Get Married Again?

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Every year, yes every year, we forget our anniversary. 

Oh yeah, you heard (or read) right. We can’t ever seem to remember when our anniversary is! Let me start from the beginning.

On our 6 year anniversary, or so we thought, we figured it would be romantic and cute to sit as a family and watch our wedding video. We all snuggled up and watched as I walked down the aisle and our pastor began to talk to us and everyone in attendance. At some point he said the date, this 24th of May.

What?! We were appalled! We stared at each other in shock and jumped up with hands flailing! “Can you believe he said the wrong date at our wedding?” We couldn’t believe we hadn’t picked up on that before! How embarrassing that he would say the wrong date! Did no one correct him?! This was terrible and hilarious all at the same time!

Before we got too far into our shock and dismay we had a moment of rational thinking. We figured we should verify that he was indeed wrong. We consulted our marriage certificate. Continue reading →

Post Baby | Workout 4

This week  we’re taking it up a large notch and really challenging ourselves to get to a whole new level. If this looks too hard, it’s not. You can do it. Take one exercise at a time, take a breather if needed, but finish. I’m doing this, you’re doing this, and we’re getting stronger together.

If you have forgotten what exactly the workouts are refer to week 3 for detailed descriptions.

Day 1

10 Snatches

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10 Reverse Flies

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10 Squat Twists

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Continue reading →

Paleo Walnut Dark Chocolate Swirl Brownies

Whew! What a day. Every 3 months we take the dreaded hike to downtown Houston to visit our pediatric endocrinologist.

Why is it dreaded, you ask? Well, let me tell you. The drive takes an hour without traffic, 2 hours with. We got both today. Finding Children’s Hospital is a fun adventure all on its own and results in far too many illegal u-turns. We sit in a waiting room that leaves my over-reactive imagination believing that my children are going to leave with every germ known to man and my OCD kicks in and I end up using an entire bottle of hand sanitizer on their dried up hands. Come on moms, you know I’m not alone here.

Then the dreaded A1C test. Aaahhh!!! Seriously, that test feels like the “mommy report card” and I feel like I am either going to pass out or be taken away in handcuffs until they tell me what it is and it’s good. It’s torture I tell you, torture! The worst part? The waiting. Then the waiting. And of course, the waiting. Did I mention the waiting?

Yay us, we made it out alive, intact, not in handcuffs, without any major meltdowns and it only took us 7 hours from front door back to front door. I call that a success! The best part? Jeremiah’s a1c was 6.3 which is fantastic. Time to celebrate a great visit with brownies! Continue reading →

Our Love Story | My Wedding Gift

“This is the man you’re going to marry.”

Those are the words God spoke clearly to me the first time I met Brandon, my now husband.

I shook Brandon’s hand and heard the Lord say these words as if He was standing right next to me.

Why did He say this?

Because He knew I would need it. Because He knew I would need those words to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was making the right decision. Because He knew that when the going got rough I would be able to remember those words and “know that I know that I know” that I married the right man.

Because He knew what a testimony our marriage was going to be. Continue reading →

Our Love Story | The Day We Met

Sometimes the most deep, memorable conversations with our kids can happen in the most odd of places at the most unexpected times and leave the biggest impact. This was one of those times.

My two oldest kiddos are on the swim team this year so we have been spending hours every afternoon by the pool.

One afternoon out in the sun Shiloh asked me if it was okay for her to marry Jeremiah, her big brother. I smiled and asked her if she wanted to marry him.

“Yes, Mommy! He plays with me and isn’t mean too much.” Great reason, huh?! I let her down gently and told her no matter how much she loved him, her brother wouldn’t be able to be her husband.

She continued with the precious and quite funny questions for a while. Can I marry a puppy dog? How old do I have to be to get married? Do you know who I’m going to marry? What am I going to wear? Will I be really tall when I get married? Are you going to come to my wedding? How will I know who I’m supposed to marry?

Most of these were cute questions with cute answers. The last one, well, the last one was real and it needed a real answer. Continue reading →

Goodbye Sadness! You Are Not Welcome In My Life!

Disclaimer- I am not a doctor nor have I studied medicine. I am just sharing my own personal story with you. Always seek the help of a good medical doctor especially one that looks to nutrition first.  

I am a mom of 7 with 3 still at home. I home-school my kids and I am happily married (for 29 wonderful years now) to the same man who still rocks my world.

As a stay a home mom, I find fulfillment in my duties as a mom and a wife. I am beyond blessed and I love life. But for some reason sadness had crept into my life like a little snake that had slithered into a crack that I didn’t even know was there.  No matter what I did, sadness bit at me every day.I found myself crying for every little reason. 
I started each day fresh, telling myself it was going to be a better day. No matter what I did, nothing helped and that serpent of sadness still slithered in. My menstrual cycle came and went but the sadness lingered on. And my head ached daily from the stress of the sadness.

I couldn’t understand it. I was already on a lot of vitamins from my Functional medicine doctor and I was eating very healthy. (Paleo.) Why was sadness consuming me so much lately?  When I mentioned it to my doctor, he quickly picked up on it and said he was going to increase my magnesium.

Magnesium? Continue reading →

In the Middle of the Grocery Store

We’ve all been there. I’m there pretty often actually.

Picture this.

I’m checking out at the grocery store with my four little ones around me. My 6 year old daughter is in the cart crying because her favorite flip-flops broke and well, because she really doesn’t want to be sitting in the cart. My 9 year old son is at war with my 3 year old son on aisle 9 of the grocery store. Weapons of choice? Bouncy balls. Really large, annoyingly obnoxious, bouncy balls. My 2 month old sweetheart is whimpering, grunting and snorting with no understanding of why on earth I would be asking her to be patient when all she wants is some good milk! Okay, got the picture?

Now picture this. I finally get all the groceries out of the cart from around my heartbroken, shoe-less child and down the line to the clerk, swipe my card and…. nothing.

Card Declined.

Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious.

“Haha…that’s weird…I don’t know what happened…I must have hit the wrong button… let me try that again…”

Swipe.

Card Declined.

Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious.

Times. One. Million.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with it…I know there’s money in my account…I don’t have any cash on me…what should I do?!” Continue reading →