How this busy creative homeschool mom...likes to remember.

Before I had kids I saw an idea that really struck me...the idea was to set up an email for your kids and email them things to remember and give them the password when they become an appropriate age. I put a modern day technological twist on it...

First off, I started by creating an email that is unique to them. My firstborn has something to do with the Marine Corps because her Daddy joined the military when I was pregnant with her. I will, like the article I read suggested, keep the password from her until she's old enough to use it.

Then, I set up Facebook accounts for each of my children around the time of their birth and again, I will keep those passwords until they are old enough to access them. But when they do, they will have an instant timeline of their life and for the most part, they will see what happened on exactly the day that it happened.

Because you see, now I can tag them in statuses, pictures and whatever else that Facebook comes up with in the next several years. They have also been added to a secret family group that only our immediate family and a select group of very close friends, that we call family, are in.

This busy momma likes to fondly remember all the adventures we've had together and I hope this helps you too!

Changing my name...

I just recently decided to change the name of my blog because my husband is no longer in the Marine Corps. It's kind of sad and I miss it, but we are no longer a traveling military family. We are settled in and have three beautiful girls living smack in the middle of Texas.

My new blog name is a nod to a very courageous and spirited lady who is an author and a speaker to Christian families. Her name is Heidi St. John and you might know her as the Busy Mom or the Busy Homeschool Mom. Check out her website and her podcast!

How this busy creative homeschool mom scrapbooks...in just minutes a day!

To all the busy moms out there...shout out to you making it through another day of "momming"!! But at the end of all the long days, short years, and even shorter nights, you will want memories to hold on to. I've developed a system for scrapbooking in the mom years...in just minutes a day.

I've tried it all...the expensive scrapbooking companies where you buy all your acid free, lignin free papers and stickers...the fancy scrapbooking software that uses newer terms like "backgrounds" and "embellishments". But I have found for me, a simpler approach works much better and is something I can keep up with! And believe it or not, involves Facebook. My scrapbooking approach kills two birds with one stone as well. I'm posting to my social media almost every day, which let me tell you, the grandparents love AND I'm doing a bit of scrapping/journaling every time I post!

Let me describe it here...

Step One: Come up with a unique hashtag you can use on all your social media accounts. I'll list ones I've used before.

2018: #storyoftoday2018
2019: #mydayinpics2019

I normally come up with my hashtag on the first day of the new year and I plan to use that one for a whole year. You could do something different like a hashtag for a school year or some other event you want to record your memories of. My 2018 hashtag did not appear to be used by anyone else, so type it in to Facebook and you can see some of my posts!

Step 2: Create your post using your favorite social media accounts. I prefer to use Facebook...although I have tried using Instagram that would cross post to Facebook, but that doesn't always work and my parents aren't all on Instagram so I stick to Facebook. Make sure you are journaling what happened on that day in the post you create...it can be a funny anecdote or just something simple that today reminded you of. And don't forget your newly created hashtag to go with it! I normally use my year round hashtag and two other funny little hashtags I think of to accurately describe the photo I used or maybe just be silly!

Step 3: When I have a few extra minutes...baby is napping, girls are playing together nicely, homeschool is getting done...whatever! I sit down at my computer and catch up on my scrapbooking by copying and pasting my previous work into an online scrapbook such as Shutterfly. It looks like this step by step...

1) Search Facebook for my hashtag...it will pull that hashtag anytime I've used it (or if someone else has but normally you can narrow it down just to the places you've used it...bonus points if you can come up with a hashtag that no one else has used for an entire year...I did that with my 2018 hashtag!). Yes, it will even pull the hashtag up if you've used it in groups like a secret family group, which we have, for more personal things that I don't want blasted all over my social media.

2) Download whatever picture I used for my post and also make a note of the date. This is probably my favorite reason for using social media...it saves the original date of the post so I don't have to physically remember what date we went to the park for the 27th time. I also like that Facebook reminds me what I did that day in previous years...it's so much fun to look back! I like to use Facebook as my own personal timeline of adventures!

3) Copy the status I used (this is why journaling the whole story is important) plus all the cute hashtags that I came up with.

4) Upload the picture and paste the status I used to whatever online scrapbook company I choose to use. (I mentioned Shutterfly before and my reasoning for that is below...)

I use Shutterfly because their online program is very user friendly and they almost always are running some sort of sale so whenever I finish my album I can get a great deal like 50% off, free pages, free shipping or whatever they are running at the time. Have I ever quickly finished an album to take advantage of a coupon? You better believe it! I also love the templates they offer...I literally only have to upload my pictures and place them along with my copied and pasted status and my pages are done almost instantly!

I don't know what busy mom could use this easy strategy but even if it helps only one person to make memories of the little years, it will have accomplished my goal!

Are you taking your spouse for granted?

If you know me personally, you know that recently my husband and I have been separated. (That caught your attention, didn't it?)

Yes, we have been separated for almost a year now.

This would be one of the many "perks" of being a military wife. The military tells your husband what to do and he says "Yes sir" and off he goes. Sometimes they say "take your wife and family with you" and sometimes they don't. These last 9 months has been one of those times they have said the dreaded word: unaccompanied.

Do I pity myself? Sometimes. Do I cry and say it's not fair? Most definitely. Am I growing? ABSOLUTELY!

You never know what you can do until you are asked to do it. That seems trite and maybe a little cliché, but it's so true! I never thought I could have two little kids at home by myself all the time. I never thought I could pack up the car and go "visit" my husband while he is away. I never thought I would have to do things like check the oil in the car or check the air pressure on the tires. But I found out that I can do those things.

I recently had to apologize to my husband for calling myself "a single parent". Do my girls only have one parent at home right now? Yes. Do they miss their Daddy terribly? Yes. Do I sometimes have to be mom and dad at the same time (aka good cop, bad cop)? Yes. Am I truly a single parent? NO! I have help with all the big decisions...even though there are a couple times I've had to make executive decisions and our family has to live with the outcome. (And those times have made me appreciate my husband so much more! He makes those decisions all the time and the rest of us have to live with what happens after! How's that for the weight of the world on your shoulders?)

The point of this blog post is to remind myself to never take my husband for granted. I go to church and watch all these cute, young, sappy couples with their little families and I think "why them?" or "Why is it fair for them to be together and our family has to be separated?"

I choose to praise the Lord for the good things that come from having a husband that's gone. (Are there any you might ask?) I'm thankful that my husband has a good job. He signed a contract that lets us know what we will be doing for the next X number of years! He gets a paycheck every two weeks that not only is his pay, but also help with housing and "subsistence" and now that he is away it also includes an "I'm sorry we took your husband" allotment. I hear of prayer requests all the time for husbands and fathers that need jobs. Thank you, Jesus, that right now my husband has one!

I'm thankful for the ways God pushes me to be a better parent when my husband is away. I am learning to constantly check myself and my attitude when it comes to dealing with my girls. It gets frustrating to have a daughter in the throws of the "terrific twos" and another one waking me up in the wee hours of the morning to eat. Yep, there are some days where we just survive. Not every day is a survival day because I don't want it to be like that, some days we do thrive! Some days I get in bed at night and say "well, the girls ate today" and I try to remember if I ate too.

I'm thankful for the precious little girls God has given us! My little girls look so much like their Daddy that I can't help but think about him all the time. There's no way I can forget what he looks like while peering into their little faces. He is such a good Daddy that he sometimes has to go away for his job. He doesn't like it, I don't like it, they don't like it...but the safest place he can be is right where God wants him, even though he's away.

I'm thankful that even though we are separated, this is not a deployment. The opportunity to see my husband is still there. It might take a lot of work and long hours of travel but I can still see him. Skype isn't our only means of communication right now.

When it comes right down to it, being the only parent in a household is not the most fun thing I've ever done but it does help me grow, and for that, I am thankful.

Commitment

I would like to share some thoughts with you about some truths about commitment I was reminded of this past Sunday by our pastor.

One of the ladies at our church sang a beautiful song on Sunday as a wonderful reminder of God’s commitment to us. You may have heard the song “Blessings” by Laura Story. If you haven’t, here are the words:

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
And all the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your word is not enough
And all the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not,
This is not our home
It's not our home

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near

What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise

This song reminds us that God has made a commitment to take care of us. He never promised that our life would be easy or fun, but He did promise that He would be with us. One of my favorite verses that holds this promise is Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” God has our best interest in His mind, even when He sends trials our way. Not all His “blessings” are what we anticipate though. My favorite part of this song and the part that always captures me emotionally is when she writes about the “sleepless nights”. Not just one, but a 1,000 sleepless nights? That’s a lot…but sometimes as a mother I feel that I live like that all the time. But as I sit there pitying myself because I am up all night with a sick baby, I remember my friends who would give anything to have a sick baby that needed them. I think of my friend that just lost an almost full term baby and think “She would give anything to hold that precious baby just once” while I sit here complaining about holding my sweet, sick baby that just wants to be cuddled. At that point, I hold my sweet little girl just a little closer and pray for my dear friends who would love to be in my shoes. He uses those “sleepless nights” to remind us that He is always near. God made the commitment to all of us in His Word that He would always be near us. He is always faithful and keeps His promises. I keep preparing lessons for my Awana kids that all seem to revolve around one theme: God’s faithfulness and commitments to us. I love teaching kids because the truths are presented so simply to them but yet they have profound impacts on our adult lives. As much as the Lord has been bringing the theme of His commitments to my mind, I can only take from that He is gently reminding me of just one of His many promises to me.  Every promise from God’s Word is enough!

To swaddle or not to swaddle?!

I just got done reading an article in a parenting magazine about how swaddling is now considered potentially “bad” for your child. The first thought that popped into my head is “but Jesus was swaddled!” and I immediately think about how I, and the hospital staff where she was born, swaddled my daughter. Was I harming her? Is she going to have any medical problems because I swaddled her? What would be different if my parents hadn’t swaddled me? To be quite honest, people have been swaddling for a lot longer than them telling us not to! My mom said that with all of my siblings and I she was told something different…“swaddle them”…“let them sleep on their back”…“no! on their side”…“they could choke if they spit up, let them sleep on their tummy”…and on the advice went. So, how am I, 24 years later, supposed to know what to do with my children? Do I start solids at 4 or 6 months? Do I nurse or use formula? The short answer is, I don’t know! If I wanted, I could find doctors that would advocate either side of any of these issues. So how do I know what to do? There is so much good advice out there so how do I even remember it all? It worked for someone else, why isn’t it working for me? Are my kids going to be safe? On and on the worry and questions seem to go…

My firm belief is that God knows and is in control. I know that sounds so cliché but honestly, some of these “issues” are made bigger deals than they ought to be because parenting is mostly done by people who are tired, stressed, overworked and underfed. (Can you tell I’m in that stage?!) I just had a friend say something about needing a “control child” just to see if what they are doing with the other kids is actually working or if it’s just coincidence that things are working out. It’s true though! How do we truly know if something really works since it might work with one child in our family but not another? Again, I go back to the fact that God is in control. I surrender my child and husband each day to the Lord because I don’t know what the day holds for them or for me! I can’t predict what is going to happen and definitely can’t plan for any emergencies that might arise but one thing I know I will always be able to do is pray. When I surrender my husband and daughter to the Lord I feel a great burden being lifted. No longer am I in control of the situation but I have firmly placed it in God’s hands. That, I might add, is a command from the Lord! 1 Peter 5:7 says “Casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you. (ESV)” I’m the type of person that tries to control any given situation in order to have things come out my way and trust has not been an easy thing for me. But this past year I have been put in several situations where I literally had no other option but to trust the Lord for the outcome and the letting go has been hard but the rewards have been so sweet! I want to trust the Lord for the easy things, the not-so-difficult things that He brings my way and not just the big crises.

My husband is in the military and I had to come to grips with the fact that God is in control of his life and nothing will happen to him that He doesn’t want to happen. The same with my daughter. Every day is precious and I want to spend every day enjoying my family, with the grace and strength of God, and not spend my time worrying about what “might” happen. I hope this will encourage you to do the same!

I Said No but God Said Yes (Part 2)

I told God “I hate being alone” and God said to me “I’m sending your husband away for three months with no communication.” Talk about feeling alone in the world! I was 7 months pregnant when my husband left for Boot Camp. I was pretty sure at that time that he wouldn’t be back until after our first child was born. As a general rule, I don’t like being alone at all! Even if I’m sick and contagious, I want someone to be with me. It’s just the way I’ve always been. I definitely didn’t want to have my baby “alone” either! To have your husband leave you at such a critical juncture in your life is quite unnerving. During the three months he was gone, I prayed a lot for wisdom and peace about our decision. I began thinking of deployments and training periods and all the other times my husband could possibly be gone. It was so easy to let my mind go to all the worst possible scenarios. But I had to keep coming back to the fact that God was always with me and I was never truly alone. He was giving me a wonderful baby that would, for the next 18 years at least, always be with me. I was never truly going to be alone again and God was providing for that in His perfect way. Military wives go through things “alone” all the time but those of us who trust in the Lord are never truly alone and that is such a comfort to me.

This may seem silly, but I told God “I don’t like going to the doctor” so God said “I have 9 months of doctors appointments lined up for you.” I have never really liked doctor’s offices and even in college I would ask my boyfriend, now my husband, to go just to sit in the waiting room with me. That to me is the hardest part, sitting in that cold room waiting to be called back to see the doctor. Most of these appointments I had to attend alone. At the beginning of my pregnancy, my poor husband was working a lot trying to provide for our family so he couldn’t go and at the end of the pregnancy he was gone for training. For those of you who have had babies you know that most of your doctor’s appointments occur at the end of the pregnancy, so he missed the majority of them while he was in Boot Camp. During all those appointments, the Lord gave me strength and courage to get through them and to have a very healthy pregnancy! He gave me a wonderful friend who also was pregnant that I could share all my experiences with. I couldn’t believe how the Lord worked it out so that twice my husband was able to be off for my appointments! Of the two times he was able to be there the first was when we heard the baby’s heartbeat for the first time and the second was the ultrasound where we saw our baby for the first time. God kept reminding me that there are military wives everywhere who do things like doctor’s appointments alone every day and I’m not the only one.

The final time I want to share with you is when I told God that I trusted Him and He proved to me that I was still learning what trust truly is. After my husband left for Boot Camp, I kept telling people that I was fine and I was trusting God for whatever came my way while Ryan was gone. But after a series of circumstances and conversations I realized that I was saying what I wanted people to hear. It wasn’t truly what was in my heart. It wasn’t until God withheld some things from me that I realized that I didn’t trust that He was protecting or taking care of me. Our pastor in Texas had recently preached a message on needing only God. His point was that we don’t need money, we don’t need insurance, and we don’t need a spouse to be secure in this life. We need only HIM! Those points in our pastor’s message hit home so hard during Boot Camp. While my husband was gone, we didn’t see any of the money that he was making. It was put into a bank account that neither of us had access to until after he graduated. Only then did God teach me that I don’t need money to trust Him. He had allowed us to build up a small amount of savings, an amount that was perfect for the time my husband was gone. I also didn’t have insurance for 3 months because I did not have Power of Attorney to get my military ID. Again, God proved that he was my Great Physician and He was taking better care of me than any doctor ever could. Of course, my husband was gone and unreachable for most of the time except by letters that basically took a week to get to him. That taught me that I don’t “need” my husband, I need only God.

God has proved Himself so faithful in my life and I look forward to how He will continue to teach me more in the future. I love being a part of the Marine family and I know this is where God has our family for the time being.