Category: god thoughts

prayers & praises

Published on by Joanna1 Comment

Prayers & praises is a little activity that I started doing with our high school bible study girls last year when I switched from our Sunday night youth group nights to the smaller bible study setting on Tuesday nights. It was actually something that I picked up from my friend, Heidi, after attending her high school bible study group last year. I wanted to see the flow of her conversations with her girls and pick up any tips and tricks I could.

Every week we have been doing prayers and praises in our little group of girls and I can honestly say that it is one of the things I really look forward to in the week.

I took off a month and half of bible study to make time for our birthing, breastfeeding, and baby safety classes (I kind of feel like we have college degrees in baby right now) so I wasn’t able to participate in  prayers and praises. I went to bible study for the first time in a while last week and it made my heart so  happy to hear the girls keeping up this little tradition and to hear their sweet prayer requests (even if it does take forever and a day to get through EVERYONE sometimes;).

Linking up with Hallie to share 5 prayers and praises that have been on my mind/heart as of late.

1. Prayer: My kiddos have been testing ALL. WEEK. LONG. Today is day two of three and I think we are all feeling a little burned out. I can tell that they are tired, I’m tired, we are all tired and ready for this week of testing to be over with. Praying for them and their endurance – sometimes I wish I could get rid of all of the testing situations we put our students through.

2. Praise: Baby dresser is built and the crib was delivered yesterday! Things are slowly but surely coming together and that gives me some much needed reassurance and joy right now (because I was feeling super overwhelmed/crazed but the state of our apartment at the moment – how can a tiny human have SO MANY THINGS?)

3. Praise: Maternity pictures this weekend! We are having the same photographer who took our Christmas Card pictures take our maternity pictures and I couldn’t be more excited. I’ve been scouring Pinterest/magazines for some photo inspiration. I can’t wait to share how they turn out! If you haven’t checked out Kate Love Photography you definitely should.

4. Prayer: I’m really tired. I’m in definite need of some energy and endurance myself. I have been starting to feel the third trimester energy suck this week for sure and with so much to do it can feel really defeating at times. I just pray I’m using my time efficiently so that we can get everything we need to get done.

5. Praise: I’m pretty sure my wordpress account had a heart attack with all of the likes and views my little sweet potato recipe got yesterday! Hello new people – I hope you are enjoying this blog thus far and that I can add a little something to your day! Thanks for the love!

Any prayers/praises on your mind lately?

Happy Wednesday!

embracing motherhood: when I found out I was a mom

Published on by Joanna1 Comment

One of the definitions of the word embrace is: accept or support (a belief, theory, or change) willingly and enthusiastically. These are a few thoughts on motherhood and how I am embracing it in my life or rather how it is embracing me.

We found out we were pregnant the day after getting home from a celebratory weekend honoring our one year anniversary. We stayed at a local historic hotel and ventured around the downtown/uptown area of our city. We went out to eat, walked, adventured, and even went on a brewery tour (perfect timing eh?;) to reminisce our first year in this crazy, wonderful sacrament. It was an absolutely perfect weekend and I think about it often.

But that weekend I was feeling a little funny, and the day we were leaving the hotel I knew something was wrong. We ventured down to the hotel restaurant to grab a bite before checking out. When I looked at my delicious breakfast that consisted of the two largest pieces of bacon I have ever laid eyes on (bacon is by far my favorite food group, close runners up are chocolate and diet coke, you can call me the queen of healthy)…and I couldn’t stand the thought of eating them. Let the red flags abound!

We had been talking about starting our family all summer and we were both open to the opportunity of a new life within the coming year. We thought it would be the perfect time – financially, emotionally, physically – we were as “ready” to enter into parenthood as we would ever be so…we went for it.

After tossing my beloved (yet at the time disgusting) bacon aside and finishing up breakfast we drove home. When we walked back into our little apartment, I had this tugging at my heart telling me I needed to take a pregnancy test. However, being the paranoid newly wed that I was I had a pretty good stockpile going because every month I just KNEW I was pregnant.   As Eric was unloading the car I popped into the bathroom and  humbled myself to the little stick. This time the feeling felt different. It wasn’t the. “I think I am, I think I am, I think I am…but I know I’m really not.” It was, “I don’t know if I am…what if I am? Is this it?”

So then I did it. I took the test. Turned it over so I wouldn’t peek and waited for what really was the longest 3 minutes of my life. I heard Eric come into our room while I was waiting and I just knew he was probably suspicious of what I was doing because I had been in there for an eternity (re: 1.5 minutes had passed by).

Then what do you know…an extra little blue line that had never been on any test I had taken before. Happy Anniversary mom and dad!

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After I took 1 more test (I mean ClearBlue is pretty much fool proof – there are no lines to decode just prego or no) I came out of the bathroom to find Eric laying on our bed looking at his phone. Because of our recent baby talk I of course had been scheming of really obnoxiously cute and adorable ways to tell him there was a little resident in my womb – when the day came. Little did I know that my overly compulsive, word vommitting self would just not have cute and adorable that day because I blurted it out then and there that we had ourselves an anniversary present!

Those first few days, scheduling a doctors appointment, confirming the little blue lines, it was all so full of love and emotion and dear lord was it full of hormones. I just remember thinking – do I want this? yes. do I want this? I don’t know. can I handle this? absolutely not. do I want this? yes.

So here I am…on the verge of 31 weeks and still asking myself if I can handle this but my heart wants nothing more. There are days where I know my soul embraces motherhood full force, thinking about nothing else but the excitement I feel when I think about this girl. But there are days where I think… I can’t do this. I’m so young. What were we thinking? If I’m being completely honest with myself (and who ever deems this blog worthy reading material) today was a day that fell with the latter sentiment.  After finishing up our birth and childcare class last night I left thinking – what. am.  I. DOING? I can’t even swaddle a baby! How am I going to keep this tiny person alive for more than an hour by myself? How am I going to work and mother at the same time? Baby poop has the most variations of poops I have ever seen! Feeding times! Sleep times! Trying to get sleep yourself! HOLY. COW.

It’s days like today where I like thinking about the day I found out we were pregnant. A day where nothing else mattered but the love between God and my husband and me. A day that had it’s doubts and worries but above all else it was the day where I had to truly start embracing this whole mom thing…and to think, it’s only the beginning.