Change in Focus

As it turns out, keeping a personal blog is not something I am great at :) I tried, had fun with it, but just couldn't keep up with it. And personally, I am more passionate about getting my family photos and stories into a scrapbook that my friends & family can sit down with and flip through....and that got me thinking...

Let me back up a little. I have loved scrapbooking for a long time. I started scrapbooking when I was a freshman in college and was instantly hooked. It was a perfect creative outlet for me and perfect way to either have a little "me time" or to do together with my friends. And being a photography major, I especially loved having a creative way to keep track of my pictures and the stories that went with them. So scrapbooking was my big hobby through college, engagement, marriage and motherhood...as soon as Matt & I found out that our first baby was going to be a boy, I registered for baby necessities...and then stopped at the scrapbook store to buy blue scrapbook supplies :) I loved scrapbooking even more now that I had an adorable little baby to scrap. However, when our second baby came along I very quickly got very behind in my albums. And I just kind of accepted that I would n ever catch up and that I would always be behind...a few years and two more babies later and I was starting to think that my hobby that I had enjoyed so much was a thing of the past for sure. Enter Project Life!!!

Right after I had baby #3 I learned that one of my favorite "famous scrapbookers", Becky Higgins, had started a company called Project Life. She was also a Mom who had gotten behind and came up with a solution - a solution that allowed her to catch up and to stay current and to keep her photos from just sitting on the computer, never being seen or enjoyed - and that solution was Project Life. 

Project Life is AMAZING!!! It is the easiest, most do-able, enjoyable method of scrapbooking ever! I am such a huge fan and "believer". People, all you do is slip your photos into photo pockets and slip in cute little journaling cards next to them and jot down your memories on them. That's all. For real. It's amazing! Of course you can take it a step further and embellish if you want to, but you don't have to. There is no cutting, glueing, designing, matting, embellishing or anything like that required at all. Seriously  if you can slip a picture into a photo pocket and you can write down a caption - you can do Project Life!

As soon as I tried Project Life for the first time I fell in love with it! And I have SO enjoyed having our family pictures in albums, and catching up on all my "lost years" of family scrapbooking! And since I have started, about a dozen of my girlfriends have all made "the switch" and started doing Project Life albums too. And we have the best time getting together and working on our albums together. I really believe these aren't just cute little hobby projects. We are documenting the memories and moments that God has blessed us with and we are capturing little bits of our family history and story so that our kids can enjoy it and have their life documented for future generations to enjoy. 

So it is out of my love of Project Life, and of truly enjoying helping others work on their albums and get their photos off of their computer and into albums for their family to enjoy that I am switching the focus of this blog. I am no expert, but I hope that posting some tips and inspiration and ideas will help and encourage others who may be interested in Project Life. If you want to learn more, head on over to www.beckyhiggins.com and check it out! The "about" page is really informative. They also have an online store where you can order stuff, however Micheals, JoAnn Fabrics, Hobby Lobby and Meijers all carry Project Life products also. 

If you have any questions about Project Life or getting started with it I would LOVE to help you out! My next post will be all about getting started on a Project Life album, it's SO fun! For now, I'll leave you with the company's motto which I absolutely love...it sums up my feelings about photography, scrapbooking and documenting and remembering life perfectly....

"Cultivate a good life and record it" - Becky Higgins

Every Year...

It has been a long time since I have sat down with this blog, but over the past few days my heart has been so full of thoughts and emotions that I just couldn't resist hopping on here. So, I hope you don't mind some sappy word vomit from a Mom who's firstborn is turning 7.

Every year for the past 7 years I find myself feeling very tender-hearted during the days leading up to my son's birthday. I used to think it was just because time is going by so fast and I feel like there are always things that I say I want to do but never get around to, crafts to make with the kids that never get made and a list a mile long of all kinds of great, positive, super cool, family bonding, memory making ideas {mainly from Pinterest} that we should do as a family but we never quite get around to them. Normal, every day life just takes over and to be honest that's fine. We've been blessed with a wonderful family and a great normal, day to day life. But this year I think I have been especially struck by how quickly my boy is growing up and by how much he has impacted my life and how God has used him to work in my life. 

Of course all 4 of my kids are special to me {huge understatement}, I love them all the same and God has used them all to change me, to refine me, to humble me and to show me just how desperately I need to walk in daily dependance on God. But I think that most Moms would admit that there's something so unique about your firstborn. My boy will forever be my game changer. He turned me into a mother, into someone's Mommy - a role that I had been day dreaming about from the time I was a little girl. I can remember sitting around with friends in college and talking about classes and study abroad and going on to get a Masters degree and I thought to myself....."but the thing I want most is to be a wife & a Mom". At the time I remember feeling like that wasn't a "big enough" dream and that it wasn't lofty enough, but I knew it was what my heart really wanted. And then, 7 years and 22 hours of back labor ago....my husband and I welcomed our firstborn into the world....and just like that, I was someone's Mom. My sweet son changed my life forever, and my husband and I had been living a pretty good life.....but our son made it better, better times 1,000. My son's arrival kicked off what has been the most challenging, exciting, scary, anxious, worrisome, fun, hysterical, exhausting, loving, beautiful adventure of our life - and I feel like I will forever be indebted to him for that. The past seven years have truly been the best years of my life...filled with ups & downs, victories & defeats, laughter & tears, and a giant boat load of love for this incredible boy who stole my heart and carved out a special place in it that no one else could have. He was the first person to call me Mom, to depend on me for everything, to cry for me and to turn my world upside down - and I am so blessed that he did.  

The craziest part of all of this to me is how quickly it has gone by. The past 7 years have flashed by in the blink of an eye. We've gotten him ready for First Day's of school, celebrated Christmases & Birthdays, packed up for a large amount of sleepovers at Mimi's house, watched him build a jillion Lego sets, hurried out the door for countless trips to church, popped bags and bags of movie night popcorn, made a massive amount of Target runs and cheered him on through years of T-Ball, Soccer and basketball games......and {I'm going to sound like such a "mom" when I say this} it has truly gone by in the blink of an eye. Every year I find myself feeling almost stunned on the eve of his birthday, as I'm wrapping presents and charging up my camera.....thinking "How is this possible??? Those were the fastest {insert his age} years ever". I guess I just can never grasp that he's really turning another year older, it must be a Mom thing. And even though sometimes it makes me a little sad that he {and his 3 siblings} are growing up so quickly, this year it's challenged me in my parenting - to see how quickly the time is going and to adjust....adjust my mindset and my parenting. Like I said, it really feels like it's gone by in the blink of an eye...but thanks to God for blessing me with this amazing, kind, honest, nobel, hilarious, highly-skilled-Lego-building, smart, athletic, cool, thoughtful, energetic, Superhero loving, monster & dragon drawing, awesome little boy...it has been the most amazing blink ever. 

Happy 7th to my goofy, beloved boy...the coolest son and the best big brother ever. 

Love, Fear & Trust

Whew! The past three months have been a whirlwind of getting used to life as a family of 6. It has been fun, exciting, exhausting, wonderful, challenging and a blessing all at once :) We are loving our new, not-so-little family.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about how love and fear go hand in hand. Sounds crazy, but I really think it's true. As I look at my kids lately I realize that I love them so much it scares me. Scares me because I see how much I would loose and how brokenhearted I would be and how life would be no where near as much fun without them. The love I have for them scares me because I realize that, as much as I think I want to, I cannot control everything that happens to them or everything that is said to them. I desire for them to have the most wonderful, awesome, exciting, God-honoring, fabulous lives and it scares me to know that there are things in the world...people, messages, media,  the enemy....that are going to try and discourage them and keep them from living those wonderful lives I dream of for them. It scares me to think that {God forbid} I could potentially be the one to mess that up for them. Sometimes as a mom I get myself so stressed and freaked out thinking that I'm not good enough, not doing enough, not praying enough and that it's messing up my parenting and my sweet kids are going to get messed up  as a result of my lack of parenting skills. And I think that the love I have for them scares me just because I realize that having kids and a husband you adore really and truly is like letting your heart walk around outside of your body. If someone hurts my kids, my heart hurts. If something bothers my husband, my heart is bothered too. I get scared that someone is going to hurt my sons feelings or make my daughters feel like they're not good enough and I won't be able to protect them from it. 

I know that some of these feelings are perfectly normal for any mother to feel, but I also know that some of these feelings are because I struggle with trusting God to take care of the things that really, really matter to me. Sometimes I think that I can do a better job than he can. I think that my way is better, especially when it comes to my family....I mean, I'm the mom - obviously I am the one with the best plan, right?!?! Sadly, I'm not - and while I wish I was the master planner for my entire family, I know that it is far better that I am not. And in a lot of ways that is actually a huge relief. I don't think I could handle that kind of pressure, and in my attempts to protect my kids from all the bad things in the world I know I would wind up holding them back from becoming the best that they could be. And it would hold me back from learning how to actually trust God with the most important things in my life - and if I want my kids to learn how to fully trust God, I should probably learn how to also.

So what do we do when we feel stressed, worn out or scared that we aren't doing a good enough job? Scared that we can't protect our kids as much as we want to or provide a perfect world for them to live in? What do we do when we feel so happy and thankful for the little ones God has given us and, at the same time, so scared that we are going to mess it all up? In all honestly, I don't know. I wish I had the answers and had it all together but I don't. I don't say that in a negative way, just in an honest way. I don't know if any mom on earth has all the answers or quite knows how to handle the wonderful, life changing and overwhelming flood of emotions that having kids brings into your life. I think that as moms we just need to bring all the feelings we have about motherhood and our children to God and leave them in his hands, trusting that he knows best.  My best friend sent me the article below and I loved it. It summed up my feelings and the feelings that I think so many mother's share so perfectly. So I wanted to share it, and to try and encourage any other Moms out there who might be feeling the same way I am. We have a God who is bigger than all our fears, bigger than all our plans and bigger than all the unknowns out there. Like the song says "...our God is greater, our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other. Our God is healer, awesome in power...."

Here's to our God. He's greater than all our fears. And he loves our kids more than we do...even though it's hard to imagine anyone loving our kids more than their Momma's do. :)

Dear Stay at home Mom,

You are a gift of God to your husband and your kids.

But you don't always feel that way, do you?

There's a low-level feeling of guilt that creeps into your heart from time to time. Sometimes it bubbles over into tears, usually on lonely, difficult days.

You scan blogs and read books about being a good mom. You find some helpful tidbits here and there, often from women who are grandmothers now. Women you can learn from but who seem to have forgotten the struggle. They seem to have it all together.

In your heart, you want to be the kind of mom who trains up kids to make a difference for the kingdom. You know it's an honor to be entrusted with these kids. You know you've only got one shot. You want to be the mom who teaches them the Bible, models how to pray, and trains them up in the fear of the Lord.

But most of the time you feel like you're barely holding it all together.

Your house cleaning can't keep up with your kids' mess-making.

The kids embarrass you by acting up right when your guests arrive.

Your husband doesn't get just how worn out you are by the end of the day.

You come to the end of your patience. You lose your temper. Then you feel worse.

The last thing you consider yourself to be is a "good mom." And you think to yourself, It'll be a miracle if my kids turn out okay.

And - surprisingly - that's right where God wants to meet you. The place where you admit your powerlessness and your need for Him.

It's only by God's grace that any kid grows up to be a force for the kingdom.

You see, there are no perfect kids and no perfect mothers. No matter what you read in blogs, see in magazines, and learn in books. There are sinful kids and sinful moms and dads.

And the only thing greater than both is the grace of God. The God who says "there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." The God who loves to forgive, to transform, and empower.

God loves you - not because you are a good mother but just because you are His precious child.

God loves you - not because you've mastered all the skills of parenting but because He has.

It's divine grace that will transform your parenting - not guilt.

It's grace that will keep you going and serving and scrubbing when you're exhausted and worn out.

It's grace that will conquer your feelings of inadequacy and remind you of God's love for you in Christ.

It's grace that goes for the heart of your kids, not just their behavior.

God has demonstrated the fullness of His love for you through the cross of His Son, even while you were still a sinner.

He has promised you His presence.

He has spoken His approval over you in Christ.

He is the perfect Father who delights in you as a daughter.

Find in Him your Treasure and Joy. Be to others what He is to you.

So walk in freedom. Let Him hold you together when everything seems to be falling apart.

Bask in His unfailing love for you. And rest in His promise of power. 

A Summer Challenge

Summer will officially be here in a few days and I am so excited about it! I love having my kids home with me, just being together and not having to get out of the house every day if we don't want to. Recently I was so glad to come across this post on a great blog that I really enjoy reading, A Pair of Pink Shoes. It had a great idea for a summer activity using all the fun ideas that can be found on Pinterest. I enjoyed reading the post so much that I have decided to try and give the Pinterest Challenge a go when my kids are officially done with school for the summer. So, I have a few days to get my supplies and ideas together and then we are going to go for it! I am really looking forward trying to do this with my kids, I love getting into a fun & creative project with them. Here are some of the challenges we are going to tackle first. I'd encourage everyone who's looking for some ideas for what to do with their kids this summer to give the Pinterest Challenge a try! There are lots of great ideas out there and many that I am looking forward to trying. For now we are starting off nice and easy, but we're excited! This is also a great challenge to try if you're like me and you feel like all the things you put on Pinterest (whether they're for yourself or your kids) just sit on your Pinterest boards and never actually become a reality. So, here we go!


1. Find a New Home for the Camera
Up first is an all-summer-long challenge for myself, actually I guess it's an all-year-long challenge - to get my camera out of my camera bag and find a spot for it where it is easily accessible. I want to try to be more intentional about capturing our fun, every day moments around the house and not just the moments where they're all dressed up in coordinating outfits and being forced to sit pretty and smile :)

2. 30 Day Drawing Challenge
Both of my big kids love to draw, so we are going to get some sketch books for each of them and some brand new crayons and colored pencils and give this a try!

3. Cards & Notes

This challenge is a little bit more for me, but my kids have a few cards and notes they've received so we might start it for them too. I love this idea, it's so smart and so easy! Just get a hole puncher and some string or metal rings and now you can keep all your cards and notes that are special to you in one place. Also, write the date on them and any special things you want to remember about the person who gave it to you or what occasion it was given to you on.

4. ABC Bible Verses
If you head over to this website you can find a free printable with verses for each letter of the alphabet. Then just print them off and put them together in a little book and you have a really easy way to teach your kids some verses. 

5. Summer Ideas in General

I printed this off last summer and hung it on our fridge. It was perfect to have for one of those I-have-no-idea-what-to-do-today-and-the-kids-don't-feel-like-just-sitting-around-in-their-jammies kind of days :)

My Man

Right now I am torn between feeling like I do not have the words to truly express how I am feeling and between fearing that I could ramble on for pages and pages about the topic I am about to write about. Hopefully I'll land somewhere in the middle :)


Today is my husband's 30th birthday. He and I started dating when we were in High School and the first birthday we celebrated together was his 18th, it seems almost unreal that that was 12 years ago. So much has changed and yet at the same time, it feels like we're still the same 18 and 16 year olds we were back then. To me, my husband is irrefutable evidence that God creates the perfect spouse for you. I can't imagine anyone else that I could relate to, talk with, dream with, raise kids with and just plain go-though-life with like I do with my husband. I don't think I could of made it through the ups and downs of life with anyone else. He is someone who is exactly like me and also totally different from me {in a good way} all at once. He's the kind of husband who knows me better than anyone and also continues to work hard at pursuing me and discovering who I am. To say that I am grateful for him feels like a huge understatement. 


I'm sure many women say this about their husbands but it is very true of mine: I thought I couldn't love him any more than I did, until we became parents - my husband became a father and I fell in love with him in a brand new way. Suddenly we were on a new journey together - a wonderful, exciting, amazing, crazy, busy {sometimes stressful, scary & uncertain} blessed, adventurous journey. I truly cannot imagine being on that journey with anyone else. I love watching him interact with our kids. They have so much fun together and I can see how much they adore him. From about 3pm until 6pm each day all I hear is "When is Daddy coming home? Has he left work yet? Think he'll want to play Legos tonight? Will he want to play My Little Ponies with me? Can we go on a walk with Daddy tonight?...." and then comes that magical time when the garage door opens and I hear "Daddy! Daddy!! Daddy's home! Let's hide and scare him! I can't wait to hug him!" It's perfect, he is their superhero - and he's mine too. 


I could go on and on about him and still feel like I haven't properly expressed how great he is. So, you'll just have to trust me - he's a ROCKSTAR, and he's mine. And even though it's his birthday, and this post is all about him, I can't help but feel like I am the one who is getting a gift.


Happy 30th Babe! I love you so much!!! Here's to many, many more!

Find a good spouse, and you find a good life - even more, the favor of God! Prov 18:22

Consider Me Inspired // In Lots of Different Ways

I've found lots of good sites and blogs out there lately and I wanted to share them with you. They have blown me away and provided lots of good reading and encouragement. As a result I've been...


Inspired to get my camera out of my camera bag and use it more often! Life is flying by way too fast not to! I love the list at the bottom of the blog where it gives some fun ideas for snapshots to take with your kids! It's so hard to remember to step out from behind the camera and actually get in the picture with your kids, but I think it's important to do so. It's important to get pictures with your kids and not just be their paparazzi :)


Inspired to get the many, many pictures I have taken of our family off of my computer and into an album. Whether it's a plain ol' photo album, a digital scrapbook or a traditional scrapbook - I don't care! I just want my kids and family to be able to see our journey in a more physical and tangible way vs. just scrolling through pictures on a computer. The link above to the digital scrapbooks is great! They are right on Shutterfly and they are so cute and very easy to use. What I love most is how I can work on the book little by little, just here and there and it saves my work as I go! Perfect for busy Mommas!!!


Inspired to sit down and really, really think about how I am spending my time with my kids. And if you read that blog and like it, and need some good ideas for spending quality time with your kids, there is a good list of ideas here.


Inspired to support a good cause.


And finally, a little motherhood inspiration from a good quote I heard while I was watching Gilmore Girls :)


"My mother never gave me any idea that I couldn't do whatever I wanted to do or be whoever I wanted to be. She filled our house with love and fun and books and music, unfailing in her efforts to give me role models...as she guided me through these 18 years I don't think she ever realized that the person I most wanted to be was her" - Rory Gilmore

I Thought I Knew for Sure...

Looking back to the time before I became a Mom there were so many things that I thought I knew "for sure"

• I thought I knew exactly what my feelings about discipline were, I thought I knew exactly what kinds of discipline techniques I would or would not use
• I thought I would never be one of "those Moms" who dropped their child off at school in their sweats or without full hair & make-up on...
• I thought it would be so easy to fall into a good routine that would help me balance between spending lots of quality time with my kids and also keeping my house clean
• I thought it would be super easy to keep my house clean
• I thought we would spend every moment of the day making crafts and having all kinds of "teachable moments" where we talked about the world and life in general
• The list goes on and on....

I basically thought we'd be skipping through fields all day, singing songs and only taking a break to come inside for a lovely, home cooked meal :)

It turns out I was wrong. Some days I see that I was really wrong and other days I was only off by a little bit. Some days are very "field skipping" kind of days - everyone gets along, everything gets done and we just laugh and smile all day. Other days, that field feels like a huge field of knee deep mud that we are trudging through - but it's so worth it. Sometimes you have to trudge through the mud in order to get to the next field to skip through. That's just how motherhood goes, things can change in an instant. As much as it pains me to admit it, I have definitely had my share of dropping off and picking up my kids at school without a stitch of make up on and wearing a t-shirt and yoga pants (which lets be honest, is pretty much just a cuter way of saying sweats or.....{gulp}...pajamas). I haven't had an easy time keeping my house clean all day and I have most certainly had to change my feelings about discipline. Most of the time I wind up beating myself up over stuff like this. I wind up feeling bad that I can't just pull it together and be the kind of Mom who looks and feels like she has it all together all the time. It seems so easy in theory - just get organized, make some lists, get your butt in gear and pull it together. So why doesn't it always work out that way?

Sometimes it doesn't work out that way because real life happens whether we have planned for it or not. There are days and nights where things just don't go as planned and we can either kick and scream and fight it - or we can step back, take a deep breath and just go with it and focus on staying present and truly living in the moment with our kids. When I step back and really think about it, I don't think my kids really care if I have it all together or not at the moment - I think they just want someone to spend the moment with them. 

I am learning over and over again that life is not neat and tidy - life is a wonderful, enormous blessing from God, but there were no guarantees that it would always be a tidy & easy blessing. And each day usually does not unfold according to my idealistic plan. But I'm beginning to come to a place where I think I can be ok with that, or at least try to be. Don't get me wrong, my kids and my husband are my world and they deserve the best that I can possibly offer them. But I am starting to think that (in my opinion) it's better for me to offer them the happy, relaxed version of myself who might still be in yoga pants and hasn't had a chance to catch up on all the laundry yet than it is to offer them a stressed out, exhausted, frazzled version of myself who has checked everything off her to-do list but hasn't really talked to or played with her kids all day. Obviously I wish I could combine the two. I wish I could check everything off the to do list, play with my kids all day and look & feel fabulous all at the same time....but I just haven't gotten there quite yet. 

My point in saying all of this isn't to condemn anyone who doesn't have it all together and it isn't to slam anyone who does. I guess I have just realized that I've put a lot of pressure one myself to be a certain way and that isn't what God is asking me to do - He isn't the one putting pressure on me or demanding that I get it all together, I am. So the point in saying all of this is just to try to encourage other Moms who may feel the same way. Who also realize that it's time to take whatever it is in your life that is causing you undue amounts of pressure or stress and lay it down. Let it go. Give it to God. Walk away from it. Stop carrying around whatever it is that you are putting on yourself that isn't from God. God is so good to us and he never has and never will put anything on us that is too much for us. He gives us exactly what we can handle by his grace, and he doesn't need or want us adding to it. I don't say all this because it's something that I have perfected - far, far from it. It is something that God has been telling me over and over that I need to do and I hope that by putting it out there it will help me to finally just listen to him and do it. And maybe it will encourage someone else along the way. 

Here's to letting go of the things we thought we knew, and holding on to what we know is true...

Micah 6:8

He has shown you o man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Matt 11:28-30, The Message

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.

And a little encouragement about motherhood from Beth Moore :)
"We only get one shot at it. Once they're grown, they're grown. Give up on doing it perfectly but do it with a lot of heart and a lot of laughter and a WHOLE LOT OF JESUS. And rock them all you can."