Well, it is Monday...again. This week is going to be unbelievably crazy! Our car is in the shop (we only have 1 right now), I have meetings and errands, the boys have school and Enrichment, I have to drive to the AV to drop off the Boybarians at my parents. I have a church to decorate, a rehearsal to coordinate, a wedding to attend, church, worship team, going to try to sneak in some alone time with Husband, and a final trip to the AV to pick up the Boybarians. Whew! How I am going to get this all done...I do not know! But I reminded of my post last week about being still. Although I won't be able to be physically still this week, I need to be spiritually! So, if you think of me this week, please pray for peace of mind and a still heart that is relying solely on God's strength. I will not be doing much posting this week, but next week the boys have a bit of a fall break, so look forward to some great things! Drugstore beauty items, Fall Décor tips and DIY How-To's, Wedding Pictures of my ceremony and reception styling, and a World Market haul...I LOVE World Market! Until then....
~Gillian
"Keep Calm and Count Your Blessings...and your Boybarians!"
Monday, October 8, 2012
Friday, October 5, 2012
Fun Decor Ideas
I have been wanting to decorate the house for Fall...my favorite season, and I of course, as a budget minded mom, wanted to find cute, inexpensive ways to revamp the house. I did an online search for free printables and I found so many! Too many to actually use! So, I wanted to share a few of my favorites and some that I have used or plan on using. All you need to do is download them and save them, then you can print and frame them or decopauge them on a wooden letter, or whatever your crafty heart desires! Hope you enjoy!
A simple, encouraging Bible verse from Southern Traditions Boutique:
http://www.printabledecor.net/2012/be-still-and-know-printable/
An adorable Autumn printable from Thirty Days Handmade:
http://www.printabledecor.net/2012/fall-subway-art/
A wonderful reminder from A Step in the Journey:
http://www.printabledecor.net/2012/give-thanks-chevron-printable/
My favorite one for Fall from Saved by Love Creations:
http://savedbylovecreations.com/2011/10/fall-printable-keep-calm-count-blessings.html
Have fun creating!
~Gillian
Keep Calm and Count Your Blessings...and your Boybarians!
A simple, encouraging Bible verse from Southern Traditions Boutique:
http://www.printabledecor.net/2012/be-still-and-know-printable/
An adorable Autumn printable from Thirty Days Handmade:
http://www.printabledecor.net/2012/fall-subway-art/
A wonderful reminder from A Step in the Journey:
http://www.printabledecor.net/2012/give-thanks-chevron-printable/
My favorite one for Fall from Saved by Love Creations:
http://savedbylovecreations.com/2011/10/fall-printable-keep-calm-count-blessings.html
Have fun creating!
~Gillian
Keep Calm and Count Your Blessings...and your Boybarians!
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
The Important Things!
I saw this article that my friend posted on Facebook and in reading it I knew I needed to share. This is from Allison Tate via Huffington Post:
"Last weekend, my family traveled to attend my oldest niece's Sweet Sixteen party. My brother and sister-in-law planned this party for many months and intended it to be a big surprise, and it included a photo booth for the guests.
I showed up to the party a bit late and, as usual, slightly askew from trying to dress myself and all my little people for such a special night out. I'm still carrying a fair amount of baby weight and wearing a nursing bra, and I don't fit into my cute clothes. I felt awkward and tired and rumpled.
I was leaning my aching back against the bar, my now 5-month-old baby sleeping in a carrier on my chest (despite the pounding bass and dulcet tones of LMFAO blasting through the room) when my 5-year-old son ran up to me.
"Come take pictures with me, Mommy," he yelled over the music, "in the photo booth!"
I hesitated. I avoid photographic evidence of my existence these days. To be honest, I avoid even mirrors. When I see myself in pictures, it makes me wince. I know I am far from alone; I know that many of my friends also avoid the camera.
It seems logical. We're sporting mama bodies and we're not as young as we used to be. We don't always have time to blow dry our hair, apply make-up, perhaps even bathe (ducking). The kids are so much cuter than we are; better to just take their pictures, we think.
But we really need to make an effort to get in the picture. Our sons need to see how young and beautiful and human their mamas were. Our daughters need to see us vulnerable and open and just being ourselves -- women, mamas, people living lives. Avoiding the camera because we don't like to see our own pictures? How can that be okay?
Too much of a mama's life goes undocumented and unseen. People, including my children, don't see the way I make sure my kids' favorite stuffed animals are on their beds at night. They don't know how I walk the grocery store aisles looking for treats that will thrill them for a special day. They don't know that I saved their side-snap, paper-thin baby shirts from the hospital where they were born or their little hospital bracelets in keepsake boxes high on the top shelves of their closets. They don't see me tossing and turning in bed wondering if I am doing an okay job as a mother, if they are okay in their schools, where we should take them for a vacation, what we should do for their birthdays. I'm up long past the news on Christmas Eve wrapping presents and eating cookies and milk, and I spend hours hunting the Internet and the local Targets for specially-requested Halloween costumes and birthday presents. They don't see any of that.
Someday, I want them to see me, documented, sitting right there beside them: me, the woman who gave birth to them, whom they can thank for their ample thighs and their pretty hair; me, the woman who nursed them all for the first years of their lives, enduring porn star-sized boobs and leaking through her shirts for months on end; me, who ran around gathering snacks to be the week's parent reader or planning the class Valentine's Day party; me, who cried when I dropped them off at preschool, breathed in the smell of their post-bath hair when I read them bedtime stories, and defied speeding laws when I had to rush them to the pediatric ER in the middle of the night for fill-in-the-blank (ear infections, croup, rotavirus).
I'm everywhere in their young lives, and yet I have very few pictures of me with them. Someday I won't be here -- and I don't know if that someday is tomorrow or thirty or forty or fifty years from now -- but I want them to have pictures of me. I want them to see the way I looked at them, see how much I loved them. I am not perfect to look at and I am not perfect to love, but I am perfectly their mother.
When I look at pictures of my own mother, I don't look at cellulite or hair debacles. I just see her -- her kind eyes, her open-mouthed, joyful smile, her familiar clothes. That's the mother I remember. My mother's body is the vessel that carries all the memories of my childhood. I always loved that her stomach was soft, her skin freckled, her fingers long. I didn't care that she didn't look like a model. She was my mama.
So when all is said and done, if I can't do it for myself, I want to do it for my kids. I want to be in the picture, to give them that visual memory of me. I want them to see how much I am here, how my body looks wrapped around them in a hug, how loved they are.
I will save the little printed page with four squares of pictures on it and the words "Morgan's Sweet Sixteen" scrawled across the top with the date. There I am, hair not quite coiffed, make-up minimal, face fuller than I would like -- one hand holding a sleeping baby's head, and the other wrapped around my sweet littlest guy, who could not care less what I look like."
"Last weekend, my family traveled to attend my oldest niece's Sweet Sixteen party. My brother and sister-in-law planned this party for many months and intended it to be a big surprise, and it included a photo booth for the guests.
I showed up to the party a bit late and, as usual, slightly askew from trying to dress myself and all my little people for such a special night out. I'm still carrying a fair amount of baby weight and wearing a nursing bra, and I don't fit into my cute clothes. I felt awkward and tired and rumpled.
I was leaning my aching back against the bar, my now 5-month-old baby sleeping in a carrier on my chest (despite the pounding bass and dulcet tones of LMFAO blasting through the room) when my 5-year-old son ran up to me.
"Come take pictures with me, Mommy," he yelled over the music, "in the photo booth!"
I hesitated. I avoid photographic evidence of my existence these days. To be honest, I avoid even mirrors. When I see myself in pictures, it makes me wince. I know I am far from alone; I know that many of my friends also avoid the camera.
It seems logical. We're sporting mama bodies and we're not as young as we used to be. We don't always have time to blow dry our hair, apply make-up, perhaps even bathe (ducking). The kids are so much cuter than we are; better to just take their pictures, we think.
But we really need to make an effort to get in the picture. Our sons need to see how young and beautiful and human their mamas were. Our daughters need to see us vulnerable and open and just being ourselves -- women, mamas, people living lives. Avoiding the camera because we don't like to see our own pictures? How can that be okay?
Too much of a mama's life goes undocumented and unseen. People, including my children, don't see the way I make sure my kids' favorite stuffed animals are on their beds at night. They don't know how I walk the grocery store aisles looking for treats that will thrill them for a special day. They don't know that I saved their side-snap, paper-thin baby shirts from the hospital where they were born or their little hospital bracelets in keepsake boxes high on the top shelves of their closets. They don't see me tossing and turning in bed wondering if I am doing an okay job as a mother, if they are okay in their schools, where we should take them for a vacation, what we should do for their birthdays. I'm up long past the news on Christmas Eve wrapping presents and eating cookies and milk, and I spend hours hunting the Internet and the local Targets for specially-requested Halloween costumes and birthday presents. They don't see any of that.
Someday, I want them to see me, documented, sitting right there beside them: me, the woman who gave birth to them, whom they can thank for their ample thighs and their pretty hair; me, the woman who nursed them all for the first years of their lives, enduring porn star-sized boobs and leaking through her shirts for months on end; me, who ran around gathering snacks to be the week's parent reader or planning the class Valentine's Day party; me, who cried when I dropped them off at preschool, breathed in the smell of their post-bath hair when I read them bedtime stories, and defied speeding laws when I had to rush them to the pediatric ER in the middle of the night for fill-in-the-blank (ear infections, croup, rotavirus).
I'm everywhere in their young lives, and yet I have very few pictures of me with them. Someday I won't be here -- and I don't know if that someday is tomorrow or thirty or forty or fifty years from now -- but I want them to have pictures of me. I want them to see the way I looked at them, see how much I loved them. I am not perfect to look at and I am not perfect to love, but I am perfectly their mother.
When I look at pictures of my own mother, I don't look at cellulite or hair debacles. I just see her -- her kind eyes, her open-mouthed, joyful smile, her familiar clothes. That's the mother I remember. My mother's body is the vessel that carries all the memories of my childhood. I always loved that her stomach was soft, her skin freckled, her fingers long. I didn't care that she didn't look like a model. She was my mama.
So when all is said and done, if I can't do it for myself, I want to do it for my kids. I want to be in the picture, to give them that visual memory of me. I want them to see how much I am here, how my body looks wrapped around them in a hug, how loved they are.
I will save the little printed page with four squares of pictures on it and the words "Morgan's Sweet Sixteen" scrawled across the top with the date. There I am, hair not quite coiffed, make-up minimal, face fuller than I would like -- one hand holding a sleeping baby's head, and the other wrapped around my sweet littlest guy, who could not care less what I look like."
Allison Tate with her little guys!
Wasn't that so true? I often do the same thing! Our culture has ruined us so much that we neglect taking photos of with our little ones. God said that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made!" Why is it so hard to remember that! This encouraged me that although I may care that my hair is flat, my jeans are baggy, my skin is bare, my eyebrows hairy and my legs unshaved...the Boybarians don't! Just like they don't care that the bathroom is scrubbed and I made a cool new home décor project on Pinterest. They care that I love them, snuggle them, wipe their tears, clean their scraped knees, read to them, hug them, kiss them, be silly with them and so much more. So go and make some important memories with your littles!
~Gillian
Keep Calm and Count Your Blessings...and your Boybarians!
Monday, October 1, 2012
Monday Musings....
Habits...habits can be a blessing or a curse. I had been in the good habit of running and I slipped out of that good habit after resting my knee for 2 weeks. I am now in the bad habit of avoiding 5:00 am at all cost. How can I get back into the good habit? Self-discipline! Another good habit! So, this week, I am going to try and make running my habit again...and that means waking up at 5:00 am will also be a good habit...how is good and 5:00am even in the same sentence?
Musings....I have so much going on the next few weeks and I am starting to feel like it is going to cave in on me. I am hoping to do a home décor haul and a drugstore beauty challenge, but we will see if I can get to it. I also still haven't forgotten about the fall tutorial and some more recipe reviews. Hopefully, it will all come together and if it doesn't I will remember that I need to rely on this verse:
"Be Still and Know that I am God". I am tired, weary, and overwhelmed, but I know that all that matters is this...I need to be still. I need to trust in God in the way I say I do. I need to believe that although my house is a mess, laundry is piled up, I have 20 things on my to-do list, my eyebrows need waxing, and my toes need painting, that God wants me to do 1 thing...Be Still. Be still and glorify Him. Be still and love my husband. Be still and cherish my boys. Be still and serve others. Be still and TRUST Him. Be still. I encourage you to join me on this quest.
~Gillian
Keep Calm and Count your Blessings...and your Boybarians!
Musings....I have so much going on the next few weeks and I am starting to feel like it is going to cave in on me. I am hoping to do a home décor haul and a drugstore beauty challenge, but we will see if I can get to it. I also still haven't forgotten about the fall tutorial and some more recipe reviews. Hopefully, it will all come together and if it doesn't I will remember that I need to rely on this verse:
"Be Still and Know that I am God". I am tired, weary, and overwhelmed, but I know that all that matters is this...I need to be still. I need to trust in God in the way I say I do. I need to believe that although my house is a mess, laundry is piled up, I have 20 things on my to-do list, my eyebrows need waxing, and my toes need painting, that God wants me to do 1 thing...Be Still. Be still and glorify Him. Be still and love my husband. Be still and cherish my boys. Be still and serve others. Be still and TRUST Him. Be still. I encourage you to join me on this quest.
~Gillian
Keep Calm and Count your Blessings...and your Boybarians!
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