Grace Filled Mama

Happy 40 th Anniversary Mom and Dad!!! Today was my parents 40 th Wedding Anniversary.  Forty years is a long time to be married. My husband and I only have been married for 10 years and feel like that has been a long time, but let me tell you about my parents.  First of all, they are not perfect, nor are they what I would call romantic, but they have the secret to what makes a marriage last.  (Are you on the edge of your seat now. ) Faith: Both of my parents are followers of Christ, and have been for almost 30 years. This gave them a common purpose to walk toward, and lean on. Commitment: When most people first get married they have romantic ideas about how wonderful their life is going to be like. Sometimes its like this, but most of the time its not.  My parents are committed to one another no matter what.  It is important to not that they have faced many challenges in their marriage. One such challenge was raising four girls on one income, so my mom could stay

Day 1: Its 5:15am and the baby is awake. My husband rolled over in an attempt to see the alarm while I sit upright and start to gain my bearings. I head to the kitchen to make a bottle for him.  I change and feed the baby and put him in the playpen to play. My morning has started. At this point it is almost 6am, and I can either shower, have a quiet time, or unload the dishwasher.  Before jumping in the shower, I chatted with my husband for a few minutes about our grocery list. Then give him a kiss before I take a shower and he goes off to work.  By the time I finish it is near 6:40 which gives me just enough time to eat breakfast and unload the dishwasher before I have to get the kids up at 7:15. Once again my quiet time has been pushed out by my morning tasks. Day 2: I wake up at 5:30 am- And start get ready for the day. I manage to shower, eat breakfast, drink coffee, and have a full quiet time while all children are still tucked snuggly in their beds. Prior to the children g

Last Saturday afternoon was beautiful and sunny  and I had invited a friend over to visit. Originally we were going to stay inside and talk, but the weather was so beautiful that we decided to go outside and plant a few flowers that I got for Mother's Day in our garden in front of the house. Since, we purchased the house almost two years ago we really hadn't had much chance to even plant any flowers or do much of anything outside other than basic maintenance. The project was supposed to be simple. I needed to plant some flowers that I had received for Mother's Day before they met their untimely end on my windowsill above my kitchen sink. Honestly,  I only needed to plant three petunias, a pansy and a lima bean (my daughter brought home from school). The plan was to plant the flowers in the raised bed in front of the house next to the shrubs.  However, when my friend was raking the dead leaves out of the garden we  discovered landscaping fabric. I really did not want to cut

It seems that I've gotten into a wonderful rhythm of meal planning that has turned into actual successful meals for my family.  I am still trying to find a way out of the chaos that has happened these past few months (after our son was born) and even more recently since all the kids ended up getting sick. It seemed like everything was falling apart and even something as simple as having a family meal together seemed like an impossibly. I shared my struggle with a friend of mine and she encouraged me not to give up. So armed with a freezer stocked with food, I grabbed a pen and started meal planning for the next week. One of the issues that I have had with meal preparation has been the time it takes. I started using our slow cooker every day to make our dinner and it has worked out wonderfully.  I actually have two slow cookers, a regular  six quart, and a casserole (13 x9) crockpot. The casserole crockpot has actually lived on the shelf in my laundry room for the past year due to

I went to a ladies brunch today at my church. The theme was about mothers. Someone read from Proverbs 31 and there were two ladies  that shared about how important a mom with a wonderful Christian example was in their lives. The first lady described how her mom (who raised her in NYC ) was a wonderful example in showing her how to live the Christian life in her priorities and attitudes. She was also a wonderful example of a mother and wife who is always present and willing to sacrifice for her kids and husband.  The other dear lady described being raised in the mountains of rural Georgia (with no electricity or indoor plumbing ) by her mother (who was illiterate) and father (a share cropper) as the oldest of nine children.  She described her mother as a quiet woman whom never complained, and who was always singing hymns. She said her favorite was Amazing Grace, and was constantly praying for her children. She was a living testimony of God's love for her family. The the most impo

When my heart is overwhelmed lead me to the Rock that is higher than I. Psalm 61:2 I've been overwhelmed a lot lately due to several weeks of sick children, and in addition to limping around on a bum foot. I have managed to get behind on almost everything around the house. The average tasks of taking care of my kids have been taking up the majority of  my time and energy. Therefore it's fair to say that I've been a bit dIscouraged.    Others can probably relate to feeling overwhelmed and discouraged. Though I'm not feeling as badly as last week, I want to try to dig myself out of the discouragement and messes, and mountain of laundry caused by the craziness of last week. Here are some ways I've been trying to refocus for this week. MAKE A LIST OF EVENTS AND APPOINTMENTS:  The first thing I did to refocus was to make a list of the events this week.  MAKE A MEAL PLAN : Next I made my meal plan on my dry erase board in my  kitchen. MAKE A LIST OF GOALS FOR THE W