my little garden

This morning, the rains are here and I don’t mind a bit. It’s helping the boys sleep in a little and it’s watering my little garden. Or, I should say He is watering my little garden. I keep telling my husband that it’s one of my most favorite places to be in the whole world. Summer is half over and it saddens me to think that my garden is coming close to its peak…well, I’m sad and excited at the same time. From a distance, it looks like a mess!

My messy little garden

But, if you look more closely, you’ll see the good stuff!

Butternut squash

Yellow crookneck squash

Almost ripe tomatoes

WATERMELON!

Sugar snap peas

Sunflower

God has blessed my little garden and I’m so thankful.

My baby boy, Elam, will be one on Monday! Isn’t that hard to believe? Looking back on a post from a year ago, time has flown and he’s changed so much.

Little Ezra is 3.5 and is saying the funniest things. Like, shoulders are “shirtles”. Gotta love it.

My Thrive ministry is taking off slowly. Check out my separate website for more details about that.

Enjoy the rest of the summer!

so stinkin’ excited

A lot has happened since my last post! I’ve started my own business/ministry and it’s really just falling into place. I believe that’s because God gave me the vision and he’s working out all of the details. 🙂 Check out my website!

My logo!

I’m teaching my first Thrive Cardio & Strength workout tomorrow…I’ve taken contemporary Christian music and choreographed a 30 minute routine. We’re going to start the session with a prayer and end with a short devotional. Then, I’m having my first seminar at my church on June 15.

Life is good on the home front too! I’m enjoying the extra time with my boys (including my husband) and my part-time job doing web development is going well. We develop our sites on WordPress now, so that helps!

What’s going on in your world?

busy as a bee

A busy honeybee on a spring crocus

I’m really too busy to be posting, but I couldn’t not share this with you. I spent the day with my mom yesterday since it was her birthday, on our way into the restaurant for lunch, she pointed out these beautiful little flowers with honeybees buzzing around. I was so stinkin’ excited! This winter has seemed to last forever, even though it’s been relatively mild. I just love spring and summer and I could have just laid down in those flowers all day. It was about 60 degrees and sunny. What a lovely day.

Life is moving along at lightning pace, but I’ve gotten a better grip on a work/home life balance. I’m looking forward to the month of April when (fingers crossed) things should slow down a bit.

Baby Elam (now 7 months old) cut his first tooth on my birthday a couple weeks ago. It made me crazy. Little Ezra (3 years old) is potty trained and says the wildest things. I’m so blessed. My husband is a sweety, too. 😉

Enjoy the weekend, wherever you are and whatever you do!

God loves me (and He loves you, too!)

It occurred to me (again) yesterday how much God must love us. We are His children. I love my children more than I could ever describe to any human. And God loves us more than we love our own children. So, why wouldn’t He bless us and give us the desires of our hearts? At the same time, He wants us to grow and learn lessons sometimes, too.

Up until a few days ago, I had been battling with a big decision in my life and I had no peace or joy. Well, I wouldn’t say “no”, but it was a lot less than it had been in the previous months and years. After praying about it and weighing all the options, I decided I had to make a change and now I have peace and joy again! Through the process, I feel like I’ve grown closer to God and now I have the desire to become even closer to him.

I get Rick Warren’s Purpose Drive Life daily devotional via email. The one I read this morning almost made me cry, even though it was several days old. The part that got me was, “How do you know when you’re letting God live through your life? When you embody the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” It got me for a couple of different reasons…I have the peace and joy again. AND, just a week or so ago, I blogged about my goals for this year and one of them was to study the Fruit of the Spirit.

God loves us. We’re his kids. He’ll talk to us if we listen.

Matthew 7:9-11 King James Version (KJV)

⁹ Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?

¹⁰ Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

¹¹ If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

My sweet baby boy is 6 months old today!

oh, blog, how i’ve missed you!

I have missed blogging so much (among other things). My life is moving is warp speed, which I’m sure is the case for most of you. Since November, I’ve been Acting Director at the fitness facility where I work. It’s been challenging, both professionally and personally. The holidays were good and I tried to separate work from home life, but I did find myself thinking about work too much while at home.

My boys are growing up so quickly and they seem to change daily. The oldest will be 3 at the end of the month and the baby will be 6 months in a couple of weeks as well. They’ll be 18 before I can blink, I’m sure. I really am trying to enjoy every minute with them. Don’t get me wrong, there are moments that are trying when your two year old screams, “No, mommy!” when you try to tell him something to do, but thankfully those moments are fewer than the good ones.

I did manage to set some 2015 goals for myself a week or so ago. If I don’t get them down on paper and in my face this month, they aren’t going to happen. This is what I have on tap for me this year:

• Spend time studying and applying what I learn about the Fruit of The Spirit
• Take each aerobics class offered at our wellness facility in order to better help members and guests
• Spend more quality time with my husband, kids, and extended family
• Compete in one sprint and one international triathlon (I missed last year since I was pregnant)
• Get back to meal planning and cooking
• Reduce the sugar in my toddler’s diet
• Expand our vegetable garden and can/freeze some produce at harvest

I looked back over my 2014 goals and I’m happy to report I met most of them! These are the ones I missed…

• Help lead one person to Christ – No one came to me and said they were saved because of anything I said or did this year, but I hope I’ve witnessed more. I feel like I have been more comfortable in that over the past year.
• Perform at least one pull up – I give up on that one. I don’t think I’ll ever do that.
• Potty train our son – They say that happens on the kid’s own time. I have to add that back to the 2015 list because it has to happen this year or BUST!

What’s goals have you set for yourself this year? I hope to make it back to blog before February…at least by Groundhog Day!

what a blessed life

I’ve not blogged in over a month and for that, I’m terribly sorry. I received a promotion at work so my life went from busy to extremely busy. Life is going by at warp speed.

Last night, I was lying in bed and the baby (now 4 months old and 18 pounds!) woke up around 11 pm. He really didn’t need to eat that soon, so I got him adjusted with his pacifier. I was just dozing off when the house started to shake and I finally woke up wondering what the heck was going on. Then I realized it was some type of aircraft over our house. I said, “Mike!” (my husband’s name) and started looking out the window. I saw one aircraft go over and then another was behind it kind of zig-zagging along. It was very strange so late at night. The husband said one was an Osprey (I think the loud one). It was unsettling and disturbing. I ended up feeding the baby and laying there thinking too much.

I thought about the mom who, at that very moment, was nursing her child with bombs going off around her. I wondered about folks who go to bed every night listening to planes fly over and fearing for their lives. How good we have it. How blessed we are.

Even in the hustle and bustle of life and the busy holiday season, I think God finds ways for us to slow down and thank Him for his many blessings. All we have to do is listen.

In case I don’t get back here before Christmas, please have a very merry Christmas and remember that “Jesus is the reason for the season.”

My sweet little blessings…

family portraits

We had family photos made a couple of weeks ago and I’m so happy with how they turned out. The photographer is a talented friend of mine and I think she did a great job. I almost cry when I look at the pictures because I am just so thankful for the blessing of a happy, healthy family.

My sweet family – Oct. 2014

scary halloween happenings

This morning, I fed the baby and got up really quietly to take a shower in hopes the babe would go back to sleep and I wouldn’t wake up the toddler. Husband was gone to work. I’m in the shower, when the bathroom door opens, then closes. I hope it’s my toddler! Finally after it opens and shuts a few times, here comes my NAKED two-year-old. Of course I ask him why he’s naked and he tells me he had an accident and his bed’s wet. Good Friday morning!

Then, the second “scary” thing of the morning…I totally forgot to dress up! I mean, it didn’t even cross my mind until I got to work this morning and saw other people dressed up. I knew it was Halloween and I had intended to dress up, but I just plain forgot in the rush this morning.

Today is my late grandpa Bill’s birthday. Freaky, huh?

kickin’ sugar habit and lovin’ it

I’m leading a team of 5 folks in a weight loss competition right now – we have 2 weeks left after this one and so far, my team members are doing great. When I say “leading”, I’m the personal trainer for the group. I meet with them once a week for an hour to discuss nutrition and we do a workout. Anyway, the past two I’ve led, I was pregnant, so weight loss was not on my personal list. However, now I’m 3 months postpartum and really trying to get back into shape. I was losing some weight, but then I got stuck. Then, I contracted the stomach bug and lost 3 pounds over a weekend. After that, I was on a roll again and I think I’m back down to my pre-baby weight of 155 pounds (within a pound depending on the day).

A lady that was on my first weight loss team came to speak with the current team members about how she has lost 36 pounds in 10 months. It’s pretty much common sense, but she has opened my eyes to the devil SUGAR! It’s in everything (which I already knew), but I’ve really started paying attention to it.

Did you know that adults shouldn’t really consume more than 24 grams of added sugar in a day? That’s the equivalent of 6 teaspoons. Check out this recent article by Reader’s Digest that backs it up and also gives some recipes and tips on breaking your addiction. My friend that gave the lecture brought me a newspaper article just this morning with even MORE sugar info. Here’s a short excerpt to put it into perspective:

So it pains me to use M&Ms as an example, but one ordinary-size packet (1.69 ounces) contains 31 grams of sugar. This year, the World Health Organization recommended that sugar consumption should equal no more than 5 percent of your daily caloric intake. For the average adult, that’s about 25 grams of added sugar per day. The WHO isn’t just worried about the 69 percent of Americans who are overweight or obese. Diabetes and obesity are rapidly becoming a global concern.

My packet of M&Ms already exceeds 25 grams of sugar. If on a day that I eat the M&Ms I also have a 12-ounce Coke (39 grams of sugar), a one-cup bowl of Raisin Bran Crunch (19 grams), one serving of Campbell’s tomato soup (12 grams) and a 6-inch turkey sub from Subway (7 grams), that puts me at 108 grams of sugar, or over 400 percent of the WHO’s daily recommendation. And that’s in 950 calories. So either the WHO’s recommendation is ridiculously low or much of the reason the world is getting so fat — and not just fat, but sick — is that we’re swimming in an ocean of sugar and don’t even realize it.

Either way, about 2 weeks ago, for some reason the desire for sweets just kind of left me. I still add a teaspoon of raw sugar to my coffee each morning and I like my iced tea mildly sweet, but I’ve really cut out the cookies, cakes, etc. I feel better and I’m dropping the weight that is normally hard to get off.

I encourage you to look at your sugar intake and see where you stand, then make modifications if need be. There are TONS of resources out there to help, but let me know what your hurdles are. My best piece of advice – DON’T BUY IT! If you don’t buy it, you can’t eat it. 🙂

Next up…how to get my toddler down to 16 grams or less of added sugar. This one is gonna be fun…

like a good neighbor

My husband sent me flowers Friday (ain’t that sweet?) and my son saw them on the counter Saturday morning. He asks, “Momma, where did those flowers come from?” in his cute two-year-old voice. I replied, “Your daddy sent them to me.” He looked at me and said, “Mr. Faux?” My husband and I both laughed because Mr. Faux is our retired neighbor.

My husband then said, “Like a good neighbor…” and Ezra finished with “State Farm is there.” It was hilarious. Kids say the darndest things!

Here’s a picture of my boys this morning before I left for work. Ezra was showing Elam is rubber snake. Oh, and notice the pacifier…I’ve told Ezra we’re trading it in for Halloween candy next Friday. We’re going to throw away the pacifiers…should be an interesting weekend!