Santa Fe

We recently went to Santa Fe, NM . The Mountains are beautiful and God truly gets creative with landscaping. Honestly I give this trip as a whole a 6.5 out of 10. It is an interesting town but not really a family vacation spot. More of an adult spot. Now, having said that, We had a good time.

We took in sights and did some major shopping! Which is our favorite thing to do!

The first thing we did was go shopping at the Mall and the Outlet Mall. Santa Fe has a quaint little mall. Not many options when it comes to the food court, so plan accordingly.

REMIX

This post is from a few years ago! This is how on top of things I am! 🤪 I do believe, if my calculations are correct, that I got pregnant with our third and this post went out the window! I tucked it away so I could make the perfect post. Ha! Since I am very very far from perfect here is my post!

Again, Santa Fe is not a family place, we probably won’t go back. But it was beautiful.

apple cars!

Not the brand, the food! My son is a New Years baby! Which is so cool, but not so much fun when you are school aged and can’t celebrate at school. So i asked the teacher if I could bring cupcakes on the first Friday back to school. She kind said i could but she also expressed how messy cupcakes are.  Which I can understand that, especially with a bunch of 4-year-old and 5-year-old kids, it probably is super messy.

So in an effort to keep everyone happy, I thought I would go with little fruit cups! I of course forgot the night before, but fortunately their snack time in PreK is in the afternoon and I have a whole hour off for lunch! At 11:30ish I get this great idea to look on Pinterest! lol not sure what I was thinking, but I did find a super cute apple car! It look super easy and doable! The top had a little checkered flag on a toothpick, which I did not have, and wasn’t going to be able to find in 5 minutes in my little town, so I tweaked it a little.

How fun does that look! I put 2 little blueberries on top to look like people! ADORABLE! and healthy, and I am willing to bet a LOT less messy! My Dad was hanging around, so I had him help me since I was in a bit of a time crunch.

Finished product! If you want to know what all i did to make these bad boys, just keep reading!

 

Ingredients:

Big Red Apples (they have a nice curve that helps with the look of the car)
Grapes (any color, these just looked the most yummy at the store)
blueberries
3 toothpicks per car

Cut the apples in 1/8 slices. then cute off the core part for easy eating.
Take a toothpick and push through the meat of the apple, one in the front and one in the back. with the excess toothpick, pop on some grapes for wheels.
With the 3rd toothpick, break in half. Push the pokey part into the skin of the apple and down far enough to hide after you place the blueberries on the other end of the broken toothpick!

VOILA! No baking! No mess!

HINT: while cutting the apples, put them in a bowl of saltwater. They will keep their color and not turn brown.

unwanted epiphany

my AAmazing husband got me a new bible for Christmas!! I was really needing one as mine is from HS graduation that the church gave me, which has worked great, but had been…loved. the spine was breaking and I had ‘bookmarks’ everywhere and had lost track of what the ‘bookmarks’ were actually for. oops.

Truly a beauty! Charcoal in color with the crown of thorns wrapping around it and the best part is the engraving ❤ I am in love with it! It is English Standard Version which I have never had before. I am liking it as it talks in normal language as opposed to King James, which no one can read.

I have been so excited about studying and reading. OH! I am going to soak in The Word and let my light shine! Just watch me go!

Well, I started reading 2 Timothy. Which is Paul, writing to Timothy, mostly on how to act. in short, stop the crap and be nice.

Recently in life, I have encountered quite an annoying person. I have to see this person almost everyday and it directly impacts my life. Snide comments, judgmental glares, sour attitude, computer illiterate….the works. Now, when Paul writes to Timothy he bluntly calls out those who do wrong…like by name. So, I am thinking…yes! this person should totally be on this list!

in 2 Timothy 2 Paul calls out Hymenaeus and Philetus as being stinkers and causing stirrings and doubt among believers…naughty boys (I mean i assume those are boys names but goodness! those are whopper of names!) So I am thinking YES, again, in the correct category. Upon further reading

2 Timothy 2: 23-25

23) Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels 24) And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25)CORRECTING HIS OPPONENTS WITH GENTLENESS…

So I thought I was on top of this situation…you know being the ‘Christian’ because I wasn’t so blatantly rotten. BUT (and this is the epiphany I did NOT want to find) , if I have that big of a problem with what this person is doing, I should ‘correct with gentleness’. In fact, by not saying anything and griping about it to others, I am actually the sinner. I am assuming I am not being quarrelsome, but if done with love and gentleness it should not be a quarrel. If this truly is an issue, I should confront with love and help correct. Doing the other only lets it boil inside of me and therefore makes me the sinner by gossiping, by not loving. If it is not that big of an issue….than it is not that big of an issue and I am allowing the devil into my life and determine how I think and act.

So I put on my big girl panties and was no longer upset…

 

HA! No I was grumpy all day because I realized I was wrong. like just grumpy. I ignored this person as much as i could, but I did ease up on the griping (that counts right?) But I was upset with myself, and was not really a super pleasant person today. I faked a bit so I didn’t bite anyone’s head off, but not the light I should have shined for my God.

 

God puts his words in your life at just the right time, if you let him. If you read them. It may not be what you want to hear, but you probably NEED to hear them. So don’t just read…listen. And don’t be grumpy…that doesn’t look good on anything.

 

StepDadJoseph

We were sitting in church yesterday and the sermon was on Jesus and such, as it is December, when the preacher mentioned that Joseph was the ‘step-father’. This perked my interest as I, myself, am a Step-Mom. (Side note: I like the term BonusMom, sounds less ‘cinderella-ie’)

But, by very definition, Joseph is indeed the “step-father”. This was just a mind blowing moment for me. It was one of those things that you know, but when shed on the right light, changes your thinking.

This had to be so hard! Because let me tell you, being a step-parent is even harder than being a regular parent. As if parenting is hard enough, trust me, it’s even harder.

Because we have heard this story so many times, we know that Jesus was born in what we imagine a magical stable, then we skip forward to him being like 11 and telling all the old guys at the big passover what’s what, and then all of a sudden he is 30 and backpacking all over doing his thing.

But he had to be RAISED. And as most healthy families, he needed a literal father figure in the household to teach him to be a man. Jesus came as a baby, not as a full grown man. Things needed to be done, potty training to be done, walking to be learned. I mean He needed to be taught how to eat!

So now that we have established that he was an actual toddler at some point, let’s get back to stepdad Joseph.

Our God is a good God. I mean, really pretty awesome. He let’s us make decisions. However stupid they may be, He let’s it be OUR own decision. So Joseph could have totally copped out of this deal and the world would support his decision. I mean after all, that kid Mary is knocked up with (i mean with respect but you know what I mean) is totally not his. And I mean, the angel came to him in a dream…don’t we disregard our dreams all the time and chalk it up to something we ate. But nope, Joseph was game! He said, “Bring it on Lord, I got your back. Let me raise Your son as my own and I will give it the best I got. I mean, I don’t do anything exciting. I work with my hands and sweat hard for a living. This kid will not have silk linens for his bed, but I will give him what I do have. And most of all, I will give him my love. I will teach him to be a man so that he can follow Your will. And Lord I am not entirely sure what all that entails, and I am REALLY not sure why you picked me, but I will give it my all.”

Just wow…can I be Joseph when I grow up? I wondered if he ever doubted himself along the way. I wondered if he ever broke down…even just a little.

I sat in church and thought on that for a minute and looked over at my son and thought, If I didn’t have my husband, where would this little guy be? I mean really, who would laugh at all of his fart and poop jokes? Lord knows little boys need that! Or those mom moments when you think, ‘yea, that’ll work’ and Dad comes around the corner and says, “that’s not for boys”. Boys need a dad, and Joseph stepped up and obviously did a pretty good job.

Being a Step Parent is bigger than just being a parent. Parents just do it cuz it needs to be done. But Step Parents do it because they CHOOSE to. They strap on an extra thick pair of pants and say “bring it on, I got your back”

So, if you are a Step parent and you are doubting you involvement or roll, take a lead from the most famous Step Parent EVER and teach your children to love God and to do His will.

This is my sweet “stepdaughter” (though I never call her that, that just sounded super weird). It is been one of the hardest jobs I have ever done, but I know we are in each others lives for a reason. And my biggest goal is to get her on the path God wants her on.

Sisters in Christ make the best friends

I got married young. Like 18-years-old young. Absolutely LOVE being married, but when you get married right out of high school (especially with no baby on the way) it is a rough transition. I have a sweet spot for youngsters (what am I 80?), that get married. You go from being super active and truly believing that the world revolves around you, to…well learning the hard way that the world most definitely does NOT revolve around you and trying to pick up volunteer work to fill the void of being on the go all the time. It took me a while to figure out that I didn’t have to do everything that came along, just because I did in High school.

That said, my spiritual life was also a transitional one. Camps and Youth rallies made it easy to stay on that spiritual high. Adulting and keeping your spiritual life going is a bit different. It was all just very….well there was a learning curve on who to trust with what information. Also, just because someone is older than you, does not mean they are more spiritually mature than you.

So it is a special thing when you can find a friend, who is the same age, same interests and more importantly, same spiritual maturity as yourself. Over that last 12 years of being married, I have been blessed to come into contact with people who unknowingly, helped me develop my spiritual journey to where it is now. And in the last 3 years or so, I have been SUPER blessed with coming into a friendship of a friend who is that of the described above.

I urge you to keep searching for your Sister in Christ who can also be your bestie! It is one AMAZING thing. It is a whole other level of friendship, that obviously only God can put together! And I am oh so ever thankful to Him for giving me my sweet friend!

Keep looking sister, she’s out there 😉

A ‘no touch’ subject

Yes, I am going to say it….politics….yikes! Holy cow is it on fire! This is a subject that most would agree that you should not even bring it up for one reason or another. It has the equivalent of cussing in a conversation that makes it escalate quickly.

But why? Why does the sudden bad taste in your mouth come along when you discover someone has an opposite political view from you? Why do you rush to judgment when the person you were having a pleasant conversation with reveals they are for the ‘other side’? In an instant, things change. Your friend suddenly becomes you enemy.

The reason for this is passion. When you grow up a certain way, or even change your views in mid life stream, it is passion that bubbles up and out of you. When your friend reveals this most likely disappointing view, it instantly triggers you to decide that they are against everything you believe. To your core, you believe your views. It is your opinion and you see it as fact. Your defense to protect your views is to judge others for fear they will impede on your passion.

When you google PASSION the first definition is “strong and barely controllable emotion”
So, let’s look at that.

STRONG emotion. Your beliefs are instilled you so strongly, they are practically immovable!
BARELY CONTROLLABLE: This belief/s exudes from you so strongly you can hardly control from shouting it to the rooftops, especially when ‘challenged’

This strong and barely controllable emotion you have defines your very being. And when someone, or something tries to go against that, you must defend yourself and your very personality as you know it! Unfortunately, this is usually not handled in a very Christian manner. Rather than having a friendly and loving discussion about the opinions. You instantly go into defense mode, which overtime society has developed into argue mode. It has become completely acceptable to disregard someone and be completely rude (to put it nicely) to whomever disagrees with you, without any explanation or friendly debate. On top of that, it is now also acceptable to completely shun that same person even if that person is your dear friend, or even brother/sister in Christ.

There is a second definition that google has for PASSION: the suffering and death of Jesus

Hmm…something to think about.

Instead of getting defensive, maybe we should try to understand why someone believes what they do, and then decide if that is in line with what Jesus told us.Should you feel the need to ‘correct’ your friend, please do it with a loving heart.

I want to encourage you, really plead with you, that before this election day pray. PRAY HARD. Pray that God will put in your heart to put in your mind to put in your fingers to elect the candidate that He can use the to mold our nation into what HE wants. The candidate He can use to make the decisions necessary to guide the nation back to GOD. Because quite frankly this nation has veered away from God and we as a nation are very selfish. The ideals that are developing are very much so against what God has said to do. So again, PRAY AND PRAY HARD that God will spare our nation and use our next president to do HIS will.

Monkey see Monkey do

I am trying to get all my exercising in…sometime during the day. But evidently I have been getting in workouts enough that my 3 year old is paying attention. I will say sometimes he drives me completely crazy! He thinks since I am exercising, my legs automatically become ‘a tunnel’ that he must go through. That is probably because I started this particular journey with PiYo which has yoga moves and I guess I turn into a jungle gym!

Having said that, he also encourages me to go exercise. He almost nags me to do it! I love it! If there is any habit I want him to know me for, working out would be at the top of my list! Right under serving the Lord and loving my family.

I had a proud moment the other night. During my scheduled workout, the little rugrat was driving me crazy right under my feet. But, when I got finished, LilT insisted on getting an exercise ‘for boys’ so he could ‘practice’. My pride was so big!

I am not always the best at creating teachable moments or pulling out the Pinterest activities to teach something, but you know, most of the time it is not those scheduled cute activities we give our children. As much as they are cute and fun, that is not what our kids learn from. It is our actions, our habits, our responses that our kids learn from. These are the behaviors they mimic. So if/when you think you are not doing a good job because the mom next to you has just made a dozen cookies after helping her son glue cotton balls to a piece of paper, just breath and remember you are showing your littles how to live just by being a present and loving. They will pick it up, so keep working on yourself because it will trickle down.Monkey see, monkey do!

to workout or rest

Today I went to the dr. a series of events led up to it over the last couple of days, husband fever then fine, me fever then fine, and then last night I developed a rash. Sounds gross, but evidently you can develop a rash should you have Strep throat/tonsillitis. So no worries on the rash.

I have had a lot of excuses lately not to workout as new addition BabyT is almost 6 months and doesn’t always sleep through the night. But, today I had enough and all the boys in my house were asleep so I was not going to let little tonsils get in the way of this workout.

I felt fine, no fever at the moment, so what reason did I really have to not get it done? Was the show I was about to binge watch really that pressing? umm… no.

And let me tell you something, that workout was UGLY. Definitely not something I would display to others and on top of that I was standing in front of the biggest mirror in the house reminding me every time I turned that direction exactly why I needed to never miss a workout again! A little sobering but sometimes necessary.

All that said, I felt great afterwards! I mean I was a stinky sweaty mess that needed to get in the shower immediately, but it was a total victory for me! I will keep you updated, but right now my goal is to workout 3 days a week and take my ShakeO 5 days a week. Ideally I would like to do both 7 days a week, but for now that will do. There are different seasons of life and my particular season involves a toddler and a baby. That is okay, because one day I will miss it.

UPDATES TO COME!!

mini vacation

So the other night we had to go to the pageant. Definitely did not want to because Monster Trucks were nearby and that seemed to be more exciting. BUT, our daughter was passing her title of Princess to this years winner, so a farewell walk we must watch! She was gorgeous and just another slap in the face of her growing up entirely to fast! But really she did like two things during the whole program.

I had our youngest who is just a couple of months old and my husband had our middle child who didn’t take a nap so that seemed to be as good of place as any to get that licked! Right on Daddy’s lap! Looked pretty comfy really. My mother-in-law also came to watch. So a ways through I handed the baby over to grandma, which i am sure was torture for her!! ha!

Next thing I knew my husband was nudging me awake! oops….but it was dark, and we didn’t have to watch quite a bit of this process. I felt like I was on a mini vacation… no kids, dark room, nice methodical music. What else could a gal want!!

Do you ever feel like this little moments are a vacation?! I mean at this point in time in my life, a vacation is a lot of work. Window shopping is almost impossible because my eyeballs are on my children so no one in this crazy day in age abducts them! Although, i am fairly confident they would bring them back pretty quickly. sitting down and eating at a restaurant is quite a site. Eating with one hand, holding a baby, holding the bottle he is drinking with my chin telling my toddler to get out from under the table. And trying to hold a conversation with my husband as if we didn’t have any kids with just to try to keep the spark alive and feel human!

Nothing is ever clean anymore ha! I have gone to work for the last 3 years and had something on my right shoulder. I have embraced it, but the sweet ladies at work still tell me there is something on my shirt, as if I could really get rid of it. The phantom mess on that shoulder will always be there!

Anyway, my precious 1 minute nap was amazing! I hope you can steal a few of these through the years. Honestly that is all I want right now. I know my littles are growing up so fast and I want to cherish each and every moment! BUT if my daughter is in between ‘acts’ and my boys are asleep….mini vacation it is!!