My Challenge

Well, here it goes...I am doing a 90 day Challenge to fit back into my pre-pregnancy jeans.  After my first two kiddos I got into the best shape of my life and then ended up adding one more little bundle to our brood.  So three kids later I am going to get back into shape and I am going to have fun doing it.  

The vehicle I am choosing to help get me there:

1. a good steady diet of Gods Word.

2. light exercise, nothing too difficult or time consuming. I mean, come on, I have a full time job and three kids!

3. Body By Vi Shakes (the shake mix that tastes like a cake mix).  Seriously, it's amazing.

4. and last, but certainly not least....support.  Sam is going to do the Challenge with me.

Sam's goals are to read his Bible in 90 days, quit smoking, and lose 15 lbs.  GO HONEY!  My goals are to read the Bible with him, and get back into my favorite pair of blue jeans.

We are trying to get people to do the Challenge with us.  I will be updating our progress weekly. If you want to join us we are going to have a blast. Just facebook me a message if you want to be on our team.  This will be a joint effort! Encouraging and uplifting.

Here are our before pictures...I had some fun with Light Room and edited out Sam's tattoo's :-D  I was surprised I got the jeans on, but they are far from buttoning. :-/

Well...Here we go!!!  February 8th, here we come.

xoxo,

Ronda

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...

This is not the first time that I have been fooled by quietness... quietness and preschoolers should naturally = suspicion.  The kids decided to have a family game night.

Oh those little stinkers...not a single game was left untouched.  They played them ALL.

Guesstures, Acquire, Settlers of Catan, Scatagories, Balderdash, Yatzee, MadGab...the list goes on, and on.

At times Caleb supervised.

Brooklynn helped.

Good times...good times.

Angry Eyes

I am thirty one today.  I posted last Saturday night a happy report that my eyes were doing much better only to wake up the following Sunday morning with a flare up.

Since they don't know what is causing these allergies they are going to do testing, not this coming Monday, but the following Monday.  It requires me to be off the steroids for a week.  So Sunday is my last day I get to take Prednisone.  With how bad my eyes got before the Prednisone it makes me a little nervous to go off it.  However I remind myself that God is bigger and stronger than Prednisone, he can help me.

I am excited for all that is to come this next year.  I have no idea what it holds.

Happy Birthday to me!  Pray for my eyes, it's my birthday wish.

xoxo

Ronda

One

I was visiting a church a few weeks back and the sermon was on the topic of “one.”  It was perfect really because it was something that I had been wrestling with for a while.  There are so many bad things that happen every day, every second, in this world.

I like to read news articles online and I often will share them with Sam.  He grimaces at some of the stories and says, “Why are you reading this stuff?”  So for a while I abstain, but then an article will jump out at me and just from the headline will break my heart.  Sometimes it will take me days before I can forget some horrific thing I read that for me was just a window into someone else’s dark reality…they have to live with it for the rest of their life.

One particular day I was feeling very overwhelmed because of the sheer amount of bad things that I knew were happening right at that very moment in time.  I felt the only way I could carry on was to simply not think about it.  Then came Sunday and I heard that sermon; the sermon of “one.”

With all the bad that is taking place, we have people around us that we can positively impact, we just have to start with “one”.

It might be something as simple as a compliment.  It may be picking a person and praying for them every day for a month or buying a random person’s groceries at Walmart.

As you begin to open yourself up to what you see around you, and ask God that he will present you with the opportunity to bless someone and delight him, it will happen.  In these moments you can change the life of ONE.  You can change their day, you can change their week, you can change their “luck.”

We don’t know about the single mother who is saying a prayer that God will send a miracle so that she can feed her kids, or the teenager who just needs someone to notice them and a kind word will make all the difference.  Be sensitive and tender hearted, caring for those around you and God will open up these opportunities for you to bless others.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1^st John 4: 7-8

Give to everyone who asks of you.  And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back.  And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.  But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  For even sinners love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you.  For even sinners do the same.  And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you?  For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back.  But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High.  For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Luke 6: 30-35

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for all that you have blessed us with. We have more than we need.  Please give us opportunities to pour out blessings into other’s lives that way they may know your goodness.  Let us be a reflection of light in this dark world.  Forgive us for being so selfish and self-centered.  Change our hearts so that we love as you have called us to love.

Amen!!

Xoxo

Ronda

PS: I was reading a blog that I wrote (H is for Hope) right after the tornado and I used the same scripture from Luke from above as I found it in my yard strewn with debris...God is good. 

He gave me a Hickey

Kian Crew Hickey, my little king, was born on June 7, 2012 at 2:32 pm.  I was done being pregnant…done.  Looking back now though (postpartum amnesia in full swing) I could do it all over again.  Kian sleeps through the night, occasionally rousing to nuzzle with mom and fill his tummy.  I feel very blessed.

This is his birth story.

Kian is my third baby and when I went in for my 38 week office visit the nurse practitioner told me that I was 4 centimeters dilated. I was excited and surprised.  I had been having contractions every night for a week and didn't think they were doing anything.  Apparently they were!  She offered to strip my membranes and I accepted.  It wasn’t too painful, she apologized and said she did her best but she had short fingers and it probably didn’t do much.  I was still grateful for the chance of things being sped up and the possibility of jump starting true labor.  But another week passed and still no baby so my doctor offered me an induction.  I was induced with my first two boys, Kael and Caleb, so I knew what it entailed.  So in my “doneness” I scheduled myself for an induction and was super excited to know the day that Kian would arrive.

My sister Robin and I drove to the hospital at 5am on June 7^th.  Sam stayed home with the little boys and would be coming to the hospital after he dropped them off at daycare.  They started me on the Pitocin at around 6am and the contractions began about 40 minutes after that.  They were steady and mildly painful.

I had a nurse and a nurse in training looking after me.  Eva my nurse was AMAZING.  The gal she was training was really nice too, but when she checked my cervix for dilation I thought I was going to die.  It was excruciating.  Then Eva would come over and apologize and recheck me to confirm the trainee’s estimate on how far along I was.  Eva once said “sheesh, if she stayed any longer in there you would have had to charge her rent!” we shared a little laugh.

As a few more hours passed and they continued to increase the drip I felt the contractions grow longer and stronger.  They were still bearable and I could talk though them.  I dilated to a 5 around noon, but hadn’t made any further progress.  The baby was still sitting high so they gently broke my water.  The doctor was careful to make sure the baby’s cord didn’t come out before the baby’s head came down when she broke my water.  It is bad news if the cord were to come out first because then it pinches and doesn't give the baby oxygen.  She said she barely had to touch it and my water broke.

Wowzers, this is when the contractions really began.  They were earth shattering and felt like they were breaking my body in half.  I could barely say the word epidural though these contractions.  The anesthesiologist was short and in his 50’s, very soft spoken and warned me in advance that he took his time when placing an epidural.   He did take his time, but he worked with me to make sure that he was able to get me completely numb from the belly down.  Oh, how grateful I was for the drugs, and they were just in time.  It wasn’t but a few contractions (pain free mind you) later that I felt pressure.  After being checked again I was dilated to a 10 and they said I could start pushing.  5 contractions later Kian Crew was born.  It was easy, I remember them telling me to push and since I couldn’t feel anything I didn’t feel like I was making any progress.

When he came out they placed him on my chest, something I didn't get with the other boys.  Kian was covered in vernix, a thick coating to protect him while he stewed in amniotic fluid the previous 9 months, and he had a ton of hair.  I wasn’t surprised by all his hair though because both Kael and Caleb had a lot of hair.  What a handsome little boy!  8lbs, 2oz, 22inches long.  Kian Crew, I love you!

Big brothers love the baby.  They like to help and sing him songs when he cries.  I am one blessed lady.  Thank you to my husband Sam for three beautiful boys and for being there to be my cheer captain.  Robin, my lovely sister, for being there to see each boy be born.  My mother-in-law Rebecca, for filling in when my mom coudn't be there.  And my good friend Stephanie who got to watch little Kian come into this world with us.  Love you all!

Not Burglerized, Toddlerized

Yesterday was one of the best days of my life.  We closed on our house, I saved $30 at closing, I saved another $79 when AT&T called me and told me they were waiving our activation charges, I helped someone buy their first home, our friends Gary and Stephanie took us to the Kari Jobe concert for Christmas, and then our friends Rob and Blythe took us to dinner.  It was as perfect as days can go.  Then at the strike of midnight my glass slipper came off and my carriage turned into a pumpkin…well it was more like 4am.

I awoke to the sound of something crashing in the kitchen downstairs.  So I booted Sam out of bed to investigate.  He found a 3 and a half year old covered head to toe in Krustez pancake mix destroying our laptop.  We were toddlerized.

So I have been up since 4am cleaning.  From the crime scene I can tell that Kael (the suspect) was trying to get his presents from on top of the cupboards.  So he climbed on the counter and in his attempts to get the presents broke the trim on top of the cabinets.  I also have determined that he is too short to do this from the counter which means he was standing on the microwave to accomplish all this.

When he was unsuccessful in his attempts to conquer the cabinets to claim the goods he gave up for much more destructive fun when he crossed the sink to the other counter to retrieve the laptop safely sitting on top of the refrigerator.  I don’t know how he got it down.  Doesn’t matter now, it is beyond fixing.

At some point either before or after this expensive play time he decided to have a powder party and coat the kitchen and couch in a nice layer of baking mix.

If it wasn’t enough that I am pregnant and having to pack to move.  Seriously.  Well, I still love him.  Mess is cleaned.  I am one tired momma.

xoxo

Ronda

Counting on God

I was thinking about something the other morning as I lay in bed awake.  I was mulling over the saga that has become our home buying process of the house that we were trying to buy.  We got the bad news last week that they were cancelling our contract.  So we started the house hunt all over.  I told myself as I lay there, ‘well, I trust God.’ And then I thought to myself…that’s not good enough and a worship song we sing at church started playing in my head.  I’m counting on God, I’m counting on, I’m counting on God.  There is a difference to be between trusting God and counting on God.

I realized that I don’t count on, rely on, depend on, God.  I trust him, but then I push my way into things and make things happen and take great strides to have control over my life.  I made a conscious effort to count on God.  It was hard, really, really hard.  It was hard because I already had this idea in my head.  A beautiful little house, all trimmed out for the holidays, space for the boys to play and grow and room for new baby dumpling.  So when it got taken away it was hard for me to let go and count on God that if it was the right house he would make it right.

So I pushed a little (Ronda the Pusher) and I got a lawyer, and I looked at a bunch of other houses, and at the end of the day what I was left with was no house and no reasonable prospects.  What we had was perfectly priced, what we were seeing out there would stretch us beyond what would be wise.  It was hard on me.

Today I got a phone call, (Lori, I had a perm-a-grin for about a hour), from Lori, one of our realtors.  She asked me if I was sitting down…I was.  Then she asked me if I wanted to close next week.  YES!  Yes I would LOVE to close next week!!!

So right now I count on God, that if this is the right house for us, that he will continue to open doors and that Wednesday the 16^th, at 4pm we will sign the loan papers and get the key’s.

What a wonderful day.

Oh and Baby Dumpling is due June 14^th, I am only 9 weeks along so it is still early.  Will find out what baby dumpling is in probably 9-11 weeks from now…Sam hopes for a boy.  If my previous pregnancies are any indication then I would agree with him because this has felt identical.

And if your toddlers are needing something fun to keep em busy...Lima beans and muffin tins, let the fun begin!

Xoxo

Ronda