No Hesitation

Jericho running to Seth with No Hesitation!

I'm reading Too Busy NOT To Pray. I'm reading it because my church is doing a sermon series on it (go check them out, you won't regret it!) Plus, Seth just got done reading it and I saw how it changed his view on prayer. Seth had nothing but good things to say about the book as he was reading it. I'm going out on a limb, because I'm only on page 28, but so far I recommend the book. I'll let ya know if, when I get to page 198, my recommendation changes. I'm thinking that if my recommendation does change at all it will only be by one word - I highly recommend the book, but I'm not saying that, yet!

This morning I was reading and this paragraph really stuck a cord in my heart. Ironically enough I had just gotten done telling God that sometimes I didn't know to come to him. (I just needed a little reminder that I am HIS daughter!)

You and I are not abandoned; we are God's adopted children, Jesus' brothers
and sisters. We are in God's family and we matter to him. So don't tiptoe into
God's presence, trying to find the secret of attracting his attention. Just say,
"Hello, Father," and know that he absolutely loves to hear your voice.
(emphasis mine, except on the word loves)

On Sunday mornings Seth is already at the church when Jericho and I arrive. The first thing we do every Sunday is to "find daddy!" I've gotten in the habit of spotting Seth, making sure Jericho sees him, setting Jericho down, then letting Jericho go to Seth while I step back and watching what takes place between my husband and my daughter. I love it. I am never disappointed! Since I have started implementing this observation technique there have been two things that I've taken note of every single time.

The first thing I notice is never has Jericho tip toes to Seth, Never! She boldly and confidently runs straight into her daddy's arms, without any hesitation. Jericho never slows down, there is no caution in her actions, there doesn't have to be, there shouldn't be, she knows that she is always welcome in her daddy's arms.

Which brings me to the second thing I've noticed. There is no hesitation in Jericho because of Seth's actions towards Jericho. Every time Seth sees Jericho coming towards him, his arms are wide open, there is a huge smile on his face and there is an undeniable twinkle in his eye because his daughter is coming to him! Everything about Seth says, "Come, Jericho, come to me, you're welcome here, I want you here!"

On Sunday mornings life for Seth is a little crazy. He's doing this and doing that, he's talking to this parent and that kid. Needless to say when we finally find him, he is almost always already talking to someone. My mama raised me right, I know that it is rude to interrupt, that is one of the reasons that I started waiting, but it didn't stop me from sending Jericho. Now some of you might think that it's just as rude of me to I send Jericho to Seth, but I think it's healthy. People need to see Seth's reaction to Jericho, even when he's busy, especially when he is busy. Seth is modeling to others how Christ feels about us. Every week I have at least one person that comments on how sweet Seth and Jericho's interaction with each other are those first moments of being reunited. I agree. There will come a time when I need to teach Jericho to not interrupt, but that time is not now. Now more than ever people need to be reminded that we are God's children. Just as Seth is modeling, just as Bill Hybles is telling us, just as the Bible tells us, we can go boldly and confidently into the presence of God.

So, next time you see a little boy or little girl run without hesitation into his/her daddy's arms remember that God is waiting for us to do the same. Because of who we are in Christ we do not have to hesitate!

Holy Days

Hi, My name is Tarah and I'm a holidays hater.

Okay, okay I don't hate holidays but I do feel that I have an issue with them. A major issue. And I am finally willing to admit it....

I need help....

Take February 14th for example. Ya know, Valentine's Day. Yeah, I didn't even mention it (until now) That just shows how bad this really is. Before hand I wanted to avoid the thought of it because I didn't know what to do. During Valentine's Day I was busy enjoying it with the love of my life and our adorable daughter. Seth and I went out the night before Valentines so on Valentine's Day we stayed home. Seth made a delicious Italian Cuisine (spaghetti) and served it on our nice china! He is so sweet! Jericho and I even made homemade cards for everyone (well daddy & grandparents) But even after Valentines I wish I had done more for the poeople I love. I still feel like....

I don't know how to really celebrate. I don't know how to make holidays special. I long for holidays in my home to be special. When I say special I think yummy foods (some only made certain times each year for traditions sake), festive decorations, an atmosphere that says, "It's time to celebrate!" I want some of my families fondest memories to be of us celebrating holidays together. I want to have family traditions and not just to have family traditions so we can say we have family traditions, I want there to be meaning in our traditions. I want my children to realize that it's not just a holiday but a holy day....

There is just one major problem....

I am afraid of failure. I don't want to try something new if it's not going to work. For me it is easier to just not try, then to try and fail. Failure is not an option, at least not if I can help it. I've had failures in my life but if I try really really hard not to. If I can avoid it, I do. At all cost. So, it's hard to try anything new, such as creating new traditions or learning how to celebrate holidays. It makes it very hard. Very hard becaue I really hate failing. At least the old me did.....

The new me doesn't mind so much. The new me has seen that when fear of failure is present you miss out, on a lot of things, to many things. I'm not willing to live that that anymore. So, I will be trying new things. I will prepare ahead of time, I will get some decorations (or get stuff so I can make decorations) for future holidays starting now. I will not feel guilty about (wisely) spending money to acquire holiday decor because it is now in the budget! We will start some new traditions this year. We will continue the few that we already have. I will take some tips from the Sinclair women and keep these things in mind as I learn to celebrate and set the atmosphere for celebrations. Most of all I will give myself grace! I assure you grace will be needed because....

I know at times I will fail, but as Robert Schuller says, "Failure doesn't mean you are a failure... it just means you haven't succeeded yet." I will keep trying until I succeed, however long that may be. Along the way I will pray that when I fail and fall, I fall forward, towards success....

This is all just part of me, finding me. I've learned thatI like traditions, I like to celebrate, I actually like holidays. I just have to figure out what celebrating looks like for me and my family....

Will you tell me what it looks like for yours? What are your favorite traditions and why?

Good Day Ahead!

A Husband that has the day off.

Waffles for breakfast.

Story time at the library for our little munchkin.

Then to the gym for some family fun.

Sandwiches for lunch.

Nap time for that little munchkin (maybe mommy & daddy too!)

After nap we'll go outside for a walk to please the pup.

Leftovers for dinner.

Some entertainment in the form of a high school basketball game to end the night.

It's gonna be a good day!

The Layout

Like the new look? I do! I've been wanting to change it for a while now I just hate taking the time to change it. Now that I have I love it. I didn't think I was going to like having our picture at the top (it's really big) but I do. My favorite part is that when you open the page and see our picture, Gideon's picture is the next thing that catches your eye, at least mine. It makes me feel like he's still part of the family, which he is and always will be, but it almost feels like he's in the picture with us. It's also why I liked this wordless wednesday so much, as Susie said, two of our three were represented, Gideon's feet (Seth's tatoo) were in the picture with Jericho.

The only thing that bugs me about having Gideon's picture there is that normally I would put Seth's picture first, then Gideon's, then Jericho's. In my book my husband comes before my children. Some of you might think I'm crazy for thinking this let alone saying it out loud but that's how it will aways be for me. I got to chose Seth. Him and I were together before any of our children came to be and we will be together after all our children are gone. But in the case of my blog and putting pictures where I did, I felt that since Seth was in the big picture I could put Gideon first on the side bar. (I know you understand babe, but know that you come before our children!)

Seth told Jericho to push when she was on the potty and the result of that is the picture of her on my side bar. It's also the result of wearing a piggy tail the day before, but mommy not taking the time to either put it in again, wet her hair down, or give her a bath. Poor kid it's a good thing she's cute!

Of course my hot hubby is also on the side bar. I love that man!

I'm trying to find a recent family picture, the one up top is when Jericho was 9 months old, which was 9 months ago. That one is staying, but I was hoping to put a more recent one on my side bar. Problem is that I somehow erased all our Christmas pictures *gasp* I know I thought the same thing. I don't know what I did and I don't know how to fix it, if it's even fixable. We haven't taken a family pic since then. Looks like we'll be taking some family pics here pretty soon. Ha! Anyone want to guess if that will really happen anytime soon.

Have you ever......

.....tried to paint the toes of a 1 year old?

It's not easy. That is why Jericho still, 3 days later, has only six of her nails painted. Yes, I said six. Not five or ten, but six. That's how many toes it took for me to realize that I was crazy for even trying to paint her toe nails. I should have gotten a clue when after only milliseconds of the the first five toe nails being painted Jericho had somehow managed to smear three of the five. But I didn't get a clue until I had the sixth toe painted, then tried to repaint the other three that were smeared, only to have to repaint the sixth toe, only to find that the first three were once again smeared.

Ahhh! Why did I decided to paint my one year old daughters toe nails again? I was having a hard time remembering. I think it had something to do with have fun as girls. Yeah right, wanting to pull your hair out is not fun. I once thought that I was a patient women, but since becoming a mommy I see that I am not. Don't worry, Jericho is trying to help me work on that character flaw and she's doing a mighty fine job.

Now I don't want you to think that Jericho was misbehaving or anything. In fact she was quite the opposite. What little girl doesn't try to obey your every command when she is on top of the world because she is getting to do big girl things like getting their toe nails painted. (To bad she doesn't see potty training as one of those cool big girl things.) She was thrilled. So thrilled that the first thing showed her daddy when he got home was her painted toes. So thrilled that was having a hard time sitting still like mommy told her to, which is why I almost lost my sanity.

After repainting the three original smeared toes for the second time and using a hair dryer to dry them, so Jericho didn't have to sit still for as long (wish I had thought of this in the first place) she ended up with six painted toes, instead of all ten like mommy hoped. Oh and in case you were wondering two of the six dried smeared. At that point I didn't care how many were smeared, I wasn't repainting them, I just wanted them dried so I wouldn't find pink fingernail polish all over my house.

It's safe to say that our first toe nail painting experience was not all I had hoped it to be. But it could have been worse, it can always be worse. (Wulf, remember when I let Kels paint her nails and we spilled a whole bottle of nail polish all over your kitchen floor. Wasn't that the same time that I allowed your daughter to paint your son's toe nails? What was I supposed to do he was begging me and he was only 2 at the time. He was to cute!) See I told you, it can always be worse. In our first experience I kept my sanity and even though Jericho only has six toe nails painted, she was(is) still thrilled. In my book saving sanity and sacrificing beauty is well worth it.



Tell me do you have any tricks for painting little ones nails?
(besides the obvious NOT painting them)

How do you get your little one to sit still when you clip their nails?

Wordless Wednesday - Why do I love this picture?

Is giving away an adorable meeup baby carrier. The deadline is today so go enter right away! The best part for you is that you don't have to have a blog to win!

Thanks Great Grandma Trues.....

...I love my new outfit!

Jericho and I have been spending most of our days running to and from the bathroom. Unfortunately there has been very little success. It's kind of hit or miss with the pee pee on the potty she doesn't quite get that part yet, but the poopy on the potty is another story. She knows when she has to go. She tells me right before she goes every time. She just doesn't want to go on the potty anymore and we aren't making her. But it is a little very frustrating knowing that she could go on the potty if she so chose.

Even as I wrote that last line I laughed, out loud. Am I really that surprised? This is what my sweet little girl that has a mind of her own and knows what she wants has done from day one. Jericho could have started crawling earlier than she did, but she didn't want to. She could have walked sooner but she wasn't ready. All along I knew that she could do these things it was just a matter of her making up her mind. Now here I am in the same situation only with potty training.

So, what am I going to do about it? What can I do really? I'm not going to push her to get potty trained that's for sure. I'll let her go (literally, ha!) at her pace and try to be patient. Every time I change a poopy diaper, that I know could have ended up in the potty, I'm going to thank God that I have a diaper to change. Soon enough those diapers will be but a memory. Soon enough. I just need to give my little Ruby (read the last 3 paragraphs) the time she needs.

Little Foxes

All is quiet. The babe is snug in her bed for the night, the hubby is church and the pup is asleep on the floor close by. What am I going to write about tonight?

You know how it goes. There is always a list of things to choose from. I could talk about a funny thing that happened, a sad thing that got me choked, an irritating thing I'm dealing with, a cute story about Jericho, a crazy comment made. Many times, for me, it depends on my mood. So, what is my mood tonight?

Thoughtful.



A few weeks ago my pastor spoke on sweating the small stuff. Getting the "little foxes" out of our life. These "little foxes" are just that, little, and they seem harmless but with closer examination we see that though they are small they can do big damage. Any thing that can do big damage is a big deal and needs to be dealt with. If we allow these foxes free reign they can be detrimental to the calling God has on our life. At the end of Pastor Josh's message he challenged us to find out what our "little foxes" are and deal with them.

Since then Lord has been very clearly been showing me my "little foxes." Asking me what I'm going to do about them. Am I going to continue to allow them to run rampant in my life? Or am I going to get rid of them? He has been challenging me to recognize them, study them so I know their plan of attack, He wants me to set traps and catch them. So, I've been doing this. It's hard work and most days it gets pretty ugly, I mean U-G-L-Y! (it's UGLY yeah, yeah it's UGLY!) I've found that I really, really, don't like these little foxes, not at all. Sadly I've gotten so use to some of these "little foxes" that somewhere along the lines I started treating them as a pet instead of seeing them as the conniving-little-beast-that-are-trying-to-take-me-out, that they are. It's not easy getting rid of pets, even when they are unwanted.

I've found that when dealing with these "little foxes" (a.k.a. habits, excuses, addiction, pride, fears, believed lies, harsh reactions) catching them is not the hardest part of, getting rid of them is. What am I supposed to do with these little beasts after I catch them? This is the question I found myself asking. The answer - the only thing you can do, make sure they don't come back, kill them. I know it sounds harsh, that's cause it is, but there is no other way. As Pastor Josh said, "What you feed will live and what you starve will die!" There are some verses in the Bible that say as much. Pluck it out, cut it off, gouge it out, starve it, they are all telling us to do the same thing - deal with it, get rid of it, kill it in whatever way you need to. With God's help and a big dose of His grace I've begun to do starving of my little foxes. Life is a lot safer and more pleasant without those little varmints running around.

Just as Pastor Josh challenged me, I am now challenging you. Find your foxes, deal with them, starve them, do whatever you have to do to get rid of them. It's not going to be easy and you are going to have to have a plan but God will give you one. When God guides He provides.

What are your "little foxes" and how are you going to get rid of them?

My Glory Baby

My sweet Gracie,

I miss you. I've been singing your song for days now. Somehow 4 years have slipped away, yet you are ever present in my heart. I cannot wait for the day that I will get to hold you for the first time. I've loved you from the moment I knew you were growing inside me, that will never change.

Happy 4 year Angelversary Grace!

All my love,
Mama

Potty Training - Is it to early?

How do you know when a kid is ready to start potty training?

Jericho and I went grocery shopping other day. Jericho is normally very happy to shop because there is always someone to talk to. She also loves shopping because sometimes mommy lets her get down to help push the cart. Mommy didn't realize what she was getting herself into when she did this for the first time because now it takes her 2.3 second of being in a cart before she wants "dow" (down)so she can push the cart. So, the other day, when she sat in the cart for almost 5 minutes without a word to anyone I started to wonder why she was so quiet. I looked at her and as she looked at me her eyes got really big. I asked her if something was wrong and she patted her bottom and said something that resembled poopy. Sure enough she had gone poopy and she wanted her diaper changed.

Because Jericho was the one that told me she was poopy and needed to be changed I decided to bring the potty chair up and see if she might want to use it. I know around the time that she normally needs her diaper changed so I kept and eye and her. When she looked like she was ready to go I asked if she wanted to go poopy on the potty. I was a little surprised when said yes and ran to the bathroom. So we sat on the potty. We sat in there for a few minutes reading a book when she looked at me and said "ah daah" (all done.) It hadn't been that long so I thought she was bored. When she got I was shocked to see that Jericho really had gone poopy in the potty.

In the last 2 days she has gone poopy on the potty twice and the one time we were home and she went poopy in her diaper she said "uh oh, uh oh" and was kind of upset that she didn't make it to the potty, she was playing by the time she realized she had to go it was too late. This morning we were at church when she told me she had to go. I told her it was ok and I would change her when she was done. I probably should have tried to take her to go on the potty but I am not sure how much I want to encourage it. She didn't seem t mind not going on the potty too much

She has gone poopy on the potty but she hasn't gone pee pee on the potty yet. Does that mean she isn't ready? Or does it just mean that, thanks to diapers, she can't really tell as easily when she is wet. If it's the later what do I do to get her to realize when she is wet? Is there a list of signs that I should be looking for that shows she is ready to potty train? Does age really matter when potty training? I have so many questions I don't even know where to start. I am not even sure I want Jericho potty trained yet.

I guess if we do decide to try this potty training thing I don't want to do it half heatedly. I want to do it all the way. If I do it all the way and it doesn't work then I know Jericho wasn't ready. I'd rather have that then have her be ready and me not training her as if she were ready.

If you have any suggestions, advice, things that worked for you, things that didn't, on potty training I'd love to hear it. Even if we don't start potty training now it won't be long!

Super Bowl

It's Super Bowl Sunday.

I love it!

Football

Friends

Food

All at the same time.

It doesn't get much better than that.

As long as we don't talk about the fact that the Packers
didn't even make it to the playoffs this year

I will be happy lady tonight!