Prayer

Savoring Every Moment

I have been snappy lately. I find myself getting frustrated and losing patience so quickly. Every time I feel like I am doing well at this Grace/Patience thing, I somehow seem to become even less patient and I have less Grace. I look back on those moments that I lose it and I cannot for the life of me figure out what frustrated me so much. So my 4 year old threw a washcloth into the bathtub? SO WHAT!!! I am an endless work in progress. I am finding myself very reflective today and I am hugging my two babes extra tight.

Loss seems to be all around me. The loss of children seems exceptionally present right now. Social media has a lot to do with it, but still. I don't know these losses, except for the loss of my precious niece earlier this summer. It has been One Month and 9 Days to be exact. The rest I don't know but they seem to surround me recently and my heart goes out to all the parents out there who have lost their own precious ones. I don't ever want to experience that kind of loss. Ever.

As I sit and reflect I remind myself again and again to be grateful for all I have. My life is full. My husband has a successful career that he loves, my children are healthy and happy, and I am living my dream. I have no reason for this snappiness but still it is there. All I can do is to continue to remind myself of all that I have and that I need to be content with that. Our family is nowhere near perfect. I will never be as patient with my children as I should be. We live in a fallen world. My children will disobey. They will be naughty. I will get upset. I will lose it from time to time. I also know that there is forgiveness. My Savior is there all along the way, waiting to pick up the pieces of the mess I create. The most important job that I have as a parent is to teach my children that forgiveness and to show them what it looks like as life goes on. They will understand the bad things this world has to give all on their own. Sometimes it is hard to see the good through all the bad. But it is there, and I can teach them to look for it.

I love this job of mine. I love what God has called me to do. It is a precious gift. My family is a precious gift. Even in my snappy times where I am not my best I can find the good. My Savior is not one that expects me to do certain things before He will love me or forgive me. He meets me where I am and loves me anyway.

Precious Zoey, you are loved, you are not forgotten. You brought so much love and joy in your short time with us. I am thankful for the time we got to spend with you. You are remembered every second of every day. Your cousin still talks of you and knows that you are healthy and whole now. Love you. Always. I will think of you as Ella grows up. Every milestone she passes I will think of you and wonder what you would have looked like, what you would be doing at that time.

Today I will squeeze my babies tight and think of all those that are aching to hold theirs again. Though I don't know you, my heart goes to you. I will live today and each day remembering all I have, being thankful for my life and my family. Growing each day in grace and love.

Seasonings

I hope to do many many more posts like this. Another goal of mine with this TIME that I now have is to learn how to make things. I want to be more natural. I want to sew more. I want to be more GREEN and healthy. I want my kids to be healthy. I also want to grow my craftiness. This is craftiness and I am pretty proud. I am just about the least crafty person there is out there. But here goes.

Spice Rack w/Bottles and Spices

Ingredients:

• 1 hanging bar from IKEA
• 1 (or 2) baskets(metal) to hang on the bar from IKEA
• 2 -4 sets of spice bottles from IKEA
• Chalkboard style stickers from Michaels (sooo glad I picked them up on clearance ages ago!)
• Silver Sharpie
• Bulk spices/seasonings from WinCo or Smiths (or any of your friendly grocery stores that sell in bulk)

Add all ingredients in the way that makes the most sense and this is your outcome:

Family

We had the wonderful blessing of family for the past week and a half. First we took the fairly long but beautiful road trip to McCall for the first ever Fitschen family reunion. It was wonderful. We got to see family members there that we haven't seen in years. We also got to catch up with those family members that we just recently moved away from. All in all a wonderful trip. And to those reading that haven't made the trip to McCall or haven't ever heard of it, book your trip now, it's a wonderful place to get away. I have already decided that when I make my millions (you know, in about 600 years) I will buy my house on the lake and ride my jet ski every day (they are soooo much fun!) The one thing that would have made the weekend even better was if my husband would have been able to make the trip with us. Sadly, he had to work to support us :). I loved all the time spent visiting, reflecting on good ol days, and making new memories.

A little side note on this trip....the ride home was not so pleasant. My brother borrowed our car to get back to Boise, so we packed up the kids and I into the back of my parent's truck. (I am very thankful that I was not by myself looking back) We hit the road roughly at 7:30 am, packed and ready. At approximately 8:30-8:45 my little girl got carsick. A LOT of carsick. Luckily I was sitting right next to her and knew what was happening so I managed to get most of the carsick in her blanket. YUCK. That was one stop. One disgusting, I never want to do that again, my poor parents had to help me out stop. A little ways down the road we are stopped by our friendly police man for speeding (no clue we were speeding!) I don't know if it was that 3 grown adults and 2 big carseats containing small children were all packed into one truck, or the fact that this truck most likely smelled of carsick, or the looks on our faces, or maybe he was just nice, but this nice police man reminded us of the speed and sent us on our happy way. A little ways more down the hill, we made it to Boise, dropped my dad off at the airport for a business trip, and set off to find my car. We found the car, and promptly got lost trying to find our way out of Boise. Twice. Oh well. The rest of the trip wasn't so bad until we were about 15 minutes from home. It's rush hour. Lots of cars and we are in the left hand lane. My son screams out that he has to go potty and I unsuccessfully try to convince him to wait until we get home. I grudgingly get the car over, find the closest exit and pull into a gas station. It is then that my son decides he does NOT have to go potty and refuses to get out of the car. I was done, so done. Lectures were given the last 15 minutes of the car ride and all pulled up to our home grumpy, tired, and hungry. I ordered my son into the bathroom and begin unpacking. I go check the bathroom just to make sure everything is still standing in there, you know how boys and bathrooms sometimes get along, where lo and behold I see that my son decided NOT to use the toilet. HE HAD PEED IN THE CAT LITTER BOX!!!!!!!! Oh My. That is all.

Next story. :)

This past Friday was my boys 4th birthday. It was amazing. My husbands entire family showed up to celebrate with us and my sister was wonderful enough to share her home with them as our tiny house is not even big enough for us! The weekend was spent in splash pads, county fairs, rodeos, and zoos topped with cake, ice cream, and presents. It was wonderful and I was so happy to be able to celebrate my son and his life.

I love family. I love the bad and the good. Family is who is there at the end of the day when everyone else has gone home. Family will be there for you no matter what through thick and thin, good times and bad. Family is blood, but family can also be those wonderful people that turn from friends into family. I have a few of those myself. I have been so blessed with amazing family in my life. My blood family and the family I married into. Wonderful people, and I could not ask for more.

Rainy Day Stories

It has been pretty rainy here the past week or so. A goal of mine this summer is to drain as much energy from my son as possible. We go swimming, we go do splash pads, we go for walks and play with the dog. Lately he has so much energy I swear he vibrates.

So the other day we had the afternoon off and decided we would go do something fun. We packed up a bag of stuff and headed to the splash pad clad in our swimming suits. As we pulled into the parking lot at the splash pad, so did rain and lightning and thunder. Well shoot. Now what? Then I had the brilliant idea of going to the bouncy house place we knew of through Groupon. Awesome! Even better than the splash pad. So we ran to change ours clothes and headed off to bounce to our hearts content. We found the place, we pulled into the parking lot......closed for private parties. We were officially in the fail oat now.

So what did we decide to do? Take a look:

Where We've Been

It all started in 2008. Actually it started many years before that on a school playground, but I will fast forward to what really matters. It started the summer of 2008. I had just returned home from school and a mission trip to Costa Rica. Sitting in church one Sunday I noticed a somewhat familiar face, like I had seen him before. That face was also pretty handsome. I may have mentioned to our DCE that I found him attractive and before I knew it this handsome guy was walking up to me asking me out. We went on the typical first date, getting to know each other and enjoying the s[ark of new romance. we discovered we both had a lot in common. We come from similar backgrounds, strong families, and we had both recently gotten out of engagements. That sounds weird I know, but it was comforting knowing that we knew what each other had gone through without having to talk about it. We let the past be the past and moved forward into the future. That summer was a blur of fun, excitement, romance, and pure bliss. August came and I returned to Nebraska for my Senior year in college while my guy remained in Idaho with his job. My senior year of college consisted of A LOT of student teaching, traveling, and long distance relationship stuff (not the fun part). Long distance was hard, really hard. In November, 6 months after we began dating, he proposed, I said yes, and the wedding planning began. Long distance wedding planning I may add. My poor mother. I started the new year in AZ, student teaching of course. May came and so did graduation, moving home, and a wedding. The wedding was everything I wanted and more. Now came our happily ever after. My guy had a great job in construction making decent money and I had a teaching job lined up for the Fall while I played the part of nanny through the summer. It was a great plan. We were set.

Then life happened.

Almost a month after we were married, my hubby lost his job. The construction economy in our area tanked and there was nothing to be had. This continued on with my hubby trying to find a job, ANY job for 8 months. Meanwhile, I tried to make ends meet first on a nanny's pay and then a teacher's salary. Not easy by any means. I really don't know how we made it through. Well, I do. God's amazing grace brought us though that time and many many times since.

In the midst of joblessness, being poor newlyweds, and learning to make it on our own, I discovered I was pregnant. This wasn't supposed to happen. Doctor's had told me I would never be pregnant after medical difficulties when I was younger. I was pregnant, my hubby had no job, and we were barely making it by just the 2 of us. A baby? Oh my.

I had my moment of terror, but decided to treat it as a wonderful surprise. Our miracle. God would get us through. He did, of course. A few months later, my hubby had a job, not a great one but it was a job. We had a new house (how? I don't know!) It was wonderful. We brought our son home to a house. Our own house. Time went by. Things were tight, but good.

We then made the most difficult, but best decision we could. My hubby went back to school to get a degree. No construction job ever came by and we didn't see one coming any time in the near future. It was a good thing, but boy is it hard to get through school as an adult with a family.

School happened. We got though semester by semester. I continued teaching and loving it. Our son grew and thrived. Life was rushed, money was tight, but we got through. Our families were huge supporters. Without them and their love and support, we never would have made it.

More school happened, and surprise! I was pregnant again. More scared this time around after having been through some pretty serious medical scares recently. I was told DO NOT GET PREGNANT. Guess what, oops. We were still excited. Our babies were just destined to be surprises. This time around, my pregnancy was tough. Lots of doctors, lots of checking up on things, and lots of sickness (on my part). Our baby girl was born healthy though and we were in love. Our family was complete. We decided not to risk any more health issues and made our decision to be done having kids permanent. I have my moments of sadness that I will not carry more babies but I know it was the best decision for me, my health, and our family.

Life went on, school STILL went on. My 6 week old went to the hospital with RSV, she came out and has been healthy ever since. Going to work got harder with my second. My dream of being a stay at home mom had not come true. We were doing the best we could and I knew that. But I could never shake that desire. My job was wonderful, I love teaching, but I had two babies at home that I knew needed me more. We hurried through phase after phase of our lives. I kinda tried to remember things and milestones, but I was in too much of a rush to get to the next part, the better part.

The final year of school began and again, things got harder, I faced a pay cut and my husband's job got cut as well. We didn't know what to do next. Again, family came to the rescue. We put our house up for sale. Our wonderful "Little Brown House". Miraculously it sold right away. We closed less than a month later and we were "homeless". This next part was wonderfully helpful but hard at the same time. Life continued and my husband made it to graduation. He even did well. I have never been more proud to call someone mine. He worked hard and it was worth it. A short time later he landed a job at a huge hospital in Utah where we now reside. There are still unknowns, but life is good. I am working hard every day to see the joy. I aim to remember where we are and how far we have come. I love my life and our story. It has been hard but it has been worth it. The best is yet to be. :)

Sad Day

It's a sad day in our house today. Probably very trivial, but I have come to the very hard decision to stop cloth diapering. They stink and now they leak. I have tried just about every solution in the book(and on the web) to fix these problems, but enough is enough. The diapers are old, my girl is almost 2, and the diapers were bought second-hand. As much as I would like to buy a whole new stash of cloth diapers ( I love cloth diapering, I really do) it just doesn't make sense. We will be potty training soon(hopefully!) and my girl is my last baby. Back to disposables. No more dipping my hand   in toilets (oh darn!). It's a trivial thing I know, but it was a big deal to me. We saved a LOT of money, and I had a lot of fun. If anyone out there is considering cloth diapering, do it. You won't regret it.

Grocery Shopping

We went grocery shopping today. It's a normal thing people do. Pretty boring. But as we were cruising up and down the aisles, looking at food, trying to contain our ever-moving son, it hit me what a nice moment this was. It was nothing special, but right there in that moment, we were a family, we were on our own. It was nice to savor. Today has been a nice reminder of what we have been fighting and working so hard for. The first 5 years of our life together have been Go Go Go! All I have wanted since my children were born was to slow down and enjoy life. I think this is it. I know all too soon my kids will be on the go, busy with their own lives and we will have to be just as busy to try to keep up with them and to support them in all they do. But right now, in this time, we can go slow. We can savor moments and days. Right now, my kids want me and my attention. I can finally give them that. I'm not racing to work or trying to squeeze in housecleaning on my short time away from work or other responsibilities. I love that. I love not being in a hurry. I love sitting on the floor building Lego cars and houses or sitting reading a story. I'm learning to live in the moment. I'm learning to stop looking to what could be and what will be, and instead look at what is. Life is good, life is peaceful. By no means have we accomplished all our goals in life, but right now, it's good. I have everything I need, everything I want.