Isn't she a beauty?

Aaahhh, we're back in business :) .  We bought a dishwasher and my sweet hubby installed it perfectly.

And, aaahhh, life is good again :)

I pile the nasty, crusty dishes in and, wha-lah, they come out super clean and shiny...fabulous!

It feels good to be a little less busy in the kitchen these last few days.

Speaking of busy, does your life ever just get so busy that you're like, "Whoa"?  Mine does.  And I don't particularly like it. 

Before we had kids, we stayed busy, busy all the time doing anything and everything.  Mostly our "anything and everything" revolved around ministry.  Kraig and I are volunteer youth counselors with the teens at our church so that keeps us on the go for sure.  In addition to that, we used to volunteer in pretty much every other ministry our church has as well!  If there was an announcement made for needing help in ministry, we volunteered...nursery, Awana, video/sound, Care team, music/drama, softball teams, etc.  When we weren't volunteering at church in one way or another, we were hanging out with friends.  Pretty much every weekend we were going somewhere with friends...out to eat, having friends over to our house, going over to friends' houses.  We were busy ALL the time.

When we were expecting Taylor, we made the decision that our lives HAD to slow down.  There was no way we were going to have a little newborn and be constantly on the go.  For one thing, we were cutting two full time incomes pretty much down to one.  That, in and of itself, calls for a big lifestyle change!  But, the main reason we wanted to slow down a little was because we wanted the main focus of our family to be our family. 

I think sometimes we fill our lives with so much stuff that we forget what the main focus should be.  It's easy to want to be involved in everything ourselves or have our kids involved in all kinds of activities, but all too often what happens is we just end up with cranky kids and tired mommys.  I want my kids to know the joy of just hanging out at home.  I want them to have fun playing in our own backyard all afternoon.  I want them to see how exciting board games can be when we all sit in the living room floor and play.  I want them to love the simplicity of cuddling in my lap reading books.  I want them to feel special when we hang out on the couch as a family and watch a movie.  I don't feel like these things would happen for us if we were constantly needing to get here at this time or run there at that time. 

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of weeks when we are busy and that is, of course, bound to happen.  But, for the most part, we try to keep things simple around here.  All too soon, my sweet baby girl is going to be in school and our lives are going to change drastically.  Our schedule will then revolve around the almighty school calendar-HA! :)  Even then though, I don't plan to become super-duper busy.  Taylor will have to make choices as to which activities she'd like to be involved and what's important to her.  And, oh my goodness, too soon after that, my precious baby boy will be in school...AAAHHH!  Whew, these are just things that I cannot think about!

What I CAN think about is a relaxing evening at home watching my sweet kiddos play in a dishwasher box :)

Ugh, the dishwasher broke

Yep, that's right. 

My dishwasher has seen it's last wash...boo :( . 

It's been on the blink for a while now, but we've been able to limp it along load by load waiting for that dreadful day when it could be helped no longer.  Alas, that day has come. 

Kraig is a very handy guy-I swear, he can fix anything-and when it broke a few years ago, he was able to repair it, but, this time, he attempted and it just could not be fixed.  (And wouldn't you know, it died with a full load of dirty dishes in it plus a sink full too!)  SO I have resorted to hand washing all our dishes...UGH...washing dishes is one of my least favorite things EVER.  And let me just tell you, when four people pretty much eat three meals a day at home pretty much every day, that adds up to A LOT of dishes!

So, as I've been spending so much time the last few days standing at my kitchen sink with my hands deep in warm soapy water staring out the window into my backyard, I've had a lot of time to think. 

And I've been thinking about the last 4 1/2 years of my life as a stay home mom.

(Granted, every week I do work one full day at the bank and I have since Taylor was born, but I still consider myself a stay home mom since the rest of the six days a week I'm with my kiddos.)

My life changed so drastically when Taylor was born.  I went from being a full time working woman who spent 40+ hours a week at the bank then came home to my hubby who had been working all day at his job.  I'd cook supper then clean up then do some laundry or some other cleaning chore around the house.  Then I'd veg on the couch watching TV.  Weekends were spent being L-A-Z-Y...sleeping in til 10am on Saturdays and doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.  Ah, I thought I was so busy and so tired back then...LOL...seriously?  HA!

Oh yes, my life changed drastically.  Suddenly, instead of getting up every morning and being away from home all day every day at my job, my "job" was at home and I wasn't sure how to handle it all.  I waited so long to get to be a stay home mom (7 years!) that I wanted to do it just perfectly.  I thought because I was home all the time now, my house should be perfectly kept...laundry always done, kitchen sink always empty, floors always clean.  I also thought I should have the perfect schedule for my new tiny daughter...plenty of time for her naps, plenty of time for her individual play, plenty of time for play with mommy.  I read books and articles and talked to lots of other moms who were doing this stay home mommy thing to see how I could do it better.  Sometimes I would drive myself crazy just wanting to get it right!

But, what is right??  And who decides???

Well, it took me a couple years, but I finally figured out that I have to decide what's right for me.  I'm not in any sort of stay home mom competition or race.  What works best for me and my family is what we will do.  So, who cares if someone pops in and there are dirty dishes in my sink or the bathroom floor hasn't been mopped or there is laundry on my couch?  I didn't quit my full time job to be a stay home maid, I did it to be a stay home mom. 

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to encourage anyone to just be lazy and hang out on the couch all day while household chores pile up around you.  There is a responsibility to tend to our families by keeping our homes clean and presentable among other things.  But, it's not my main focus.  My main focus is soaking up these precious baby years of my 4 1/2 year old and my almost 9 month old because it doesn't seem like a little less than four years ago that my 4 1/2 year old was my 9 month old! 

My, how the time does fly.

Read a good book lately?

I love to read and always have.  I've gone through ups and downs with reading depending on what's going on in my life, but the last couple of years, reading has been back on for me!  This is largely due to me wanting to get Taylor involved at the library so I've been taking her to story time for the last couple years plus letting her check out books and DVDs and play on the computer there.  She LOVES it!  So, since we are there pretty much every week, I've gotten back into the habit of checking out books myself and I've enjoyed it so much.  My favorite thing to read is Christian fiction. 

My absolute most favorite author to date is Karen Kingsbury

And currently have in my possession from the library

that I just started reading over the weekend.  This particular title is a modern day telling of Mary Magdalene so I'm excited to dive into it...so far I'm only about three chapters in.  Karen is most known for her Redemption series, which follows the Baxter family.  She has several spin off series from that series where the Baxters aren't main characters, but are in the background.  I'm currently waiting for her newest title Leaving which is the first book in a new series and it just came out in March.  I wonder how long it will take the library to get it...

I also really enjoy Lori Wick

The first ever book I remember reading of her's is

This particular book is not, but a lot of her series and titles are set back in the 1800s or early 1900s.  (Rylan's name actually came from her Big Sky series.  The preacher in that book is named Rylan and long before we knew about our little Rylan I mentally added that name to my boy's name list because I liked it so much!)

My most recently found author that I just LOVE, but have so far only read one title is Francine Rivers

and I read her book titled

Oh my goodness, talk about rip your heart out.  This book is a retelling of the book of Hosea (if you know the story of Hosea and Gomer then you know why this is a rip your heart out book.)  What a glorious picture of God's love for us and His unending devotion to us.

Then, a couple friends turned me on to Angela Hunt

and the first book I read of her's is

which I enjoyed, but then I read The Proposal and enjoyed it even more.

I say all this to say I feel there's a novel in me somewhere that I might just have to put in print someday.  I said this to Kraig the other day and he was like "Yeah, as much as you read, you should definitely be able to write a book!"  HA, if only it were that easy :) .  The problem is that I'm not very creative, which is definitely a must when writing fiction.  So, while there may be a novel in me somewhere, it's probably not a very good novel, HA ;) !  Maybe I should contemplate a non-fiction approach...

Making my blog cute :)

SO, I'm sure I will get around to this eventually, but I want to make my blog cute.  You know, like a cute layout with pics of my adorable family plastered all over it :0) and fun little tickers and stuff in the side margins. 

SO, calling all bloggers!!!...

How the heck do I go about this???

Getting started!

Well, here it is!  I'm so excited that I'm finally getting to start a blog!!!  This is truly something I've wanted to do for at least a couple years now, but I've only had dial up internet service and I knew that just wouldn't work.  Thankfully, we finally joined the world of high speed internet so here I am :) .

 Of what will the content of this blog be?? 

So glad you asked :)

Mostly my children, of course! 

And who knows what else.  I plan to just type random posts as the mood strikes me so we'll see what this lovely blog becomes. 

Enjoy!