Weekend Assignment #85

I don't do these often, but thought eh, this is easy enough! :)

John's question this week Weekend Assignment #85: Magazines, Anyone?

Weekend Assignment #85: What magazines do you subscribe to and why? This assumes you currently subscribe to a magazine or two, of course, but I'm reasonably confident most of us do. If you don't have any current subscriptions, however, you can list some of your most recent subscriptions or magazines you want to subscribe to.

Extra Credit: What was your first magazine subscription?

Chad gets Ranger Joe and a couple different computer magazines, I have no clue the names and he took the latest issue's with him.

I get Ladies Home Journal, Parents, and Parenting. I know! I'm a woman and mom...so I get ones that interest and relate to me! LOL

Jacob also gets one, I think it's called Turtle. It's a cute kids magazine.

For extra credit...hmmm thinking thinking thinking. I do remember getting highlights for a while, so I guess that would have to be it.

 

If you want to play go to JohnScalzi and link your entry in his journal.

Veteran's Day

I made an entry on this day on our other journal: TalesfromtheFrontandtheonesleftBehind

Thanking my wonderful husband for what he's doing and all our veteran's.

Go say Thank you to Kelly who's a vet from the AF. Love ya girl!

 

 

Jordyn

I've recieved some beautiful emails and ones that people are lovingly concerned that they might bring up hard memories because they mention cancer or death or funerals....so I thought I'd share my feelings and thoughts on this subject.

Jordyn's life was an amazing journey of ups and downs but through it all, she was this amazing and brave little girl, who had to be far stronger than most children her age. To this day, I'm still in awe of her strength and courage. God so blessed me with her. Looking at her pictures above I'm struck with these feelings of unworthiness. Knowing that for some reason GOD gave this beautiful child to me.

When I read about other's battles against cancer or the death, etc of course I think of Jordyn, but a good 95% of the time, my memory takes me to the happy days of Jordyn's life and there were so many MORE happy days than sad days. If Jordyn's story,which in turn is our story, can help someone else either giving them more knowledge on childhood cancer, AML leukemia, or give them compassion, or a glimpse of life through a family who's lost a child to cancer, for them to have more compassion when a family is having to say goodbye to their child (or loved one in general) then I'm doing good.

Whether we like it or not, life keeps going. That first year was AWFUL and the 2nd yr was really hard too. For me I had this new baby who I kept wondering what God was thinking giving to me, we sure didn't plan on creating him, yet there he was in our arms, and us loving him when we thought we'd never be able to feel that kind of love again (you know the love you have for your child). We struggled through the holidays and those "special" days her birthday and the anniversary's, etc. Every day brought something new for us learning to live without our daughter and learning to live again with our son.

We're now 5 yrs 6 months 1 day down this journey of living without our girl. It's not always easy, there are days that it feels like those horrible days after she died, that rawness comes rushing back, and the intensity is so strong.Yet most days it's a softer heart ache, it's always there, but it's not the focus of my days.

God's given me so much to be thankful for. He's given me peace that Jordyn's in heaven and that one day I'll be with her again. He's given me an amazing husband, who's strong and tender all at the same time and so brave! He's given me 2 beautiful sons. God has provided for our family time and time again. He's blessed me beyond my worth. I look at my life and it's definately not what I thought it would be when I was that wide eyed 18 yr old graduating from high school, and I'm so happy it's not what I thought it'd be...it's so much more!

Don't be afraid to talk about death, cancer, or funerals. It's part of life. Sure it's not what we want to talk about all the time and it can't be our focus 100% of the time, although for some it is a major focus of their life because of where they are, and that's how it's supposed to be for them at this point. Don't forget to look at what you do have though. Look at the blessings. Look at the beautiful things in life. Realize that with joy there's sadness. With anger this happiness. With sorrow there's tomorrow.

God Bless

November Challenge: Being Thankful

I wanted to give a shout out to Penny and want to encourage everyone to do her NOVEMBER CHALLENGE

Everyday you sign her guestbook and leave a comment of what you're greatful for, on that particular day. A few days before Thanksgiving she'll compile the list YOU sent and email you all the things you're personally greatful for and then you can read them outloud at your thanksgiving table. Isn't that an awesome idea? I'm doing and it will become a tradition that I'm going to have my immediate family do every year, so we keep the focus. I think I'll do it for December to, but have us list how we're greatful to God! I think we all get caught up in the hussle and bussle of everyday life and we focus so much on the negatives in our lives, that we REALLY need to focus on the good things. Maybe you don't have your health, but you might have an amazing family surrounding you and holding you up, etc. We ALL have trials, but I think the biggest trial is remember that we also all have joy and things we can be greatful for in our lives.

 

God Bless

 

Book name and our day

Ok the book and author that we used for our retreat is: Boundaries with Kids by Dr. Hendry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. They also have a Boundaries with Marriage. It's a great book and also is centered around God, which is the utmost importance to me. I want to grow strong, well adjusted, GODLY men.

Now for today. Jackson woke up hot, so I cancelled hourly care and didn't make it to the gym. :( Being home with my sweetie was far more important and the fact that later in the day I started feeling bad too. Jack took a very early nap in my arms and most of the day wouldn't get out of my lap, so we spent a lazy day primarily on the couch. He didn't nap, although he did stay in his bed most of the time and playing with Pounce. He wasn't so loud that he kept Jacob up, so I was fine, knowing he'd slept for such a long time this morning.

Jacob is thankfully still feeling good, so hopefully he'll stay that way. I decided that we all needed some fresh air and took the boys to the park for about a half hour. It was rather chilly, the boys both had very heavy sweatshirts on, I just had a long sleeve tshirt on so I was a little chilly but lasted for the 30 minutes. We came in because it got dark so quickly and Jacob was dancing around needing to use the restroom! LOL We came in and had dinner and Jack fell asleep on my lap by 7! I read Jacob a story (we're reading Chronicles of Narnia and are the 3rd book: The Boy and His Horse). We read a chapter a night and then off to bed by a little after 8. I hope both boys are able to sleep well tonight. I have laundry to do tomorrow, fun! It's bedding day for sure, I didn't get it done last week so it's really needed, especially now that we have Pounce and he enjoys sleeping in the boys bed and has slept part of the night with me a few times as well! The cat sheds insanely! I was able to strip Jack's bedding and get clean stuff on his bed tonight, and I'll get Jacob and my bed tomorrow stripped and made with nice clean sheets. I LOVE the smell of clean sheets and that first few nights of sleeping in them you can smell that wonderful fresh smell. Tomorrow evening we're going over to a friend's house for dinner. I'm excited! Her hubby is out of town for the week and she has 2 kids. A daughter who's 2 weeks older than Jacob and a little boy who's 1 1/2 yrs old. Our kids play great together and my boys will love the "new/different" toys to play with! She scrapbooks and she's going to give me pointers and teach mehow to make great pages! I'm so excited!!! She's also a Christian and one of the few people that will keep me accountable, it truly takes a special friendship for that. I have that with a few others, but they're not HERE and it's nice to have that kind of friendship here! :)

Well, hope everyone else's Monday was healthier than ours and if not hope you're feeling better! :)

Home

The boys and I went to a retreat this weekend! It was wonderful, just what I needed! Friday, Saturday, and this morning we had 2 hours of sessions which meant a little over 2 hrs of...childcare! we got there Friday late afternoon, got our rooms which are VERY different than rooms in the states that's for sure! We all had suites, but I've been in suites in very nice hotels in the states, but they were never quite like this. We had a downstairs and an upstairs. No I didn't take pictures, I know, I know stupid, but I just didn't think about it until after we left! Go figure. We had a full bathroom and a closet on each side of the hall way in the entry way. Then you walk a little further and there was a VERY small living area (although the rooms on the other side of the hall had a larger living area. Then there were stairs (same side as the closet), and a king size bed up there. There are no windows upstairs and felt like the heat was on full blast, so it got pretty warm up there! The upstairs was quite large (which the rooms on the other side the upstairs was not near as wide). There was tvs up and downstairs, which would have been great if the channels weren't all German, but hey we are in Germany. It didn't stop Jacob though, he still watched Tom in Jerry and laughed his tush off yesterday morning and this morning watched I believe it was Rupunzle (the princess locked in the tower with the long hair). Brothers Grim are of course from Germany, so no surprise that one of their classics was on!

We had breakfast and dinner provided for us which was nice and we didn't have to pay for the rooms or the sessions. The only thing we had to get ourselves was lunch and then when we got to go shopping yesterday! We had all day yesterday to do what we liked, sessions didn't start until 6:30 (dinner started at 5, but in reality we didn't have to eat there...but hey it was free so why not). The first night dinner was good, can't remember what we had, but it was good. Saturday night it was ok, the boys barely ate, and even dessert was only so-so. Good thing they have a mommy who brought snacks and that they LOOOOVE Fruit! They did get grapes, cheese, and both ate an apple and apple sauce, so they were fulfilled.

The retreat/sessions were on "Boundaries with Kids" The book is still in my van, so I'll try to remember to share the actual name and authors later. It was really great. Explaining how all of us, adults and children NEED and must have boundaries to have successful relationships and really a successful life. It's true, common sense stuff and gave some great idea's on disipline and just living in general, and the best of all with Christian Core Values. I'm telling you by the time Chad comes home I'm going to be parenting the way God wants me to! I feel like my relationship with Christ is growing so much and because of that I'm becoming a person that I want to be and becoming a better mom, etc. I want to be a better wife as well, a Godly wife. I love my husband and want to be the wife he deserves. I don't always try, and that's something I will be working on, even with him deployed I don't stop being a wife. I can and will continue to grow. I am excited to see how I am changing.

I know one thing I have to work on is judging people. It is so hard when they put their flaws out there for everyone to see and you get sucked into them, not wanting to but you're exposed and it's just there. I don't understand mom's who just don't care to parent, whether it's ignorance or laziness. Isn't it our jobs the moment we get pregnant to try our best to protect our children, and isn't providing disipline part of that protecting? I think so, maybe I'm crazy, I don't know. But lazy parenting just really, really ticks me off. It seems that when you're around a lazy parent their child's just SCREAMING (most often literally too) for disipline in their life. It's not always telling the child to sit down, shut up, and be silent. It's love and tenderness as well. It's showing them that "you're worth it". I'm no where near perfect, I'm working daily on being a better mom myself. My boys are not perfect. None of us are that is for sure, but we really have to TRY. We can't watch our child act like a wild animal literally, screaming and carrying on and just not do anything. The other thing (and then I'm done) is when this SAME Mom has her SICK BABY on this trip and exposes everyone to her! When a baby is having runny diapers at least 2 an hour, you don't take the child to childcare so you can "get a break". Why, hmmm..lets start counting the reasons.

1. Baby wants and needs YOU

2. Exposing childcare workers to your child's sickness

3. Exposing other children to your child's sickness

4. Seriously BAD PARENTING

To be sitting in a parenting class that obviously she desperately needs, yet on the bus ride home just showing she really doesn't get it, is sad. Ok so that vent is over. You can see where the "bad" came in for the trip.

Really though the trip was awesome! I loved the classes, I got some great items shopping! I'll have to take pictures! :) It was really a lot of fun. I got to know some people that I didn't know yet or really know. Oh and get this! Yesterday when we went shopping one of the parents said that their 2nd oldest daughter would love to watch the kids (we left Jackson, my friends youngest, and the wild child who's 4/oldest) with the girl....who's name is..........................

Jordan. Jackson LOVED her. She said that out of the 3 he was definately the best and if I ever wanted her to watch him again, she'd love to! awww! She was and is a really sweet girl. Her older sister was there as well to help her out, but she did it and when we got back her parents were back too, but they said she did it all herself and she handled it well. When I went up to get Jack, he was happy, hugged me then hugged her and said "bye, ordan". :) Then when he'd see her after wards he'd just giggle and play a little hide and seek! I have a few teenagers that would watch the boys if I need them too, which is nice to have. I'm not one that has others watch my kids that often, although with me going to the gym I'll be using childcare more, but over all I'm the mom and I am the one who takes care of my children. I don't drop them off with others much. I LOVE being a SAHM and I LOVE being with my children.

Well this has certainly gotten long and went in a few different directions! I did get as few pictures taken from our trip, and I'll get them downloaded over the next day or so and put a couple up! :)

 

FORGOT!! Ok, I'm editing this entry, don't do that very often...but I forgot my favorite part of the retreat! ROFL It's completely selfish, but felt so good.....

I got a neck and back massage. This was my FIRST true one! Oh my gosh it felt so good. It lasted 30 minutes, was only 25.00 Euro's! She rubbed out knots I didn't even know I had! The hot oil and her magic hands, I'm going to have a massage done at least once every pay period and know that with that I'll be ok without having Chad here! ROFL, just kidding magic hands on the back and neck can't fully replace Chad, but wow, it definately comes in a great 2nd! LOL Oh I'm dreaming about my next massage! :) Oh and if you haven't had one before...RUN and get one, THEY ARE worth it. Ok so those in the states definately charge too much, but well it still feels good!

Goodnight, but....

My boys! :)