i adore

I adore my girls. It's no secret. I want to be the best mommy to them and the best wife to my husband. Above all else in this world, if I have succeeded in nothing but doing my personal best in the roles of a mother, bible teacher, mentor, supporter, playmate & educator to my children, then I will feel accomplished and fulfilled in life.  A year ago, I'm not sure I can honestly say that would have been enough for me. I had goals. I had big goals that were in movement towards becoming a physician's assistant (PA). Maybe because I didn't value my job as a mother. With women needing to climb the corporate latter alongside their male partners to feel worthy and excepted by society. Needing to be able to support themselves if something were to go wrong.
I'm not disagreeing with this philosophy. I do think it is smart to be able to have a skill that can be utilized to provide for you and your family, but I also think that being just a mother is okay. It's a lot of work, responsibility and love. At the moment, I am blessed to be able to stay at home with my children full time. At the moment, this is 100% satisfying my need to feel productive and accomplished. I can't think of any other job that would give me as much satisfaction that I get each day by raising my girls.
Do I have goals? Of course. Do they have a deadline? Nope.

[via pinterest, originally found here]

letting go for once

For you writers out there, do you ever get inspired to write by the music you listen to? I was skipping through some music online and the song Ooh La La by Faces came on. The smell of pumpkin has overcome my home thanks to the overly-large sized candle that has been running for 8 hours today. Plus the girls are napping finally. So a new blog post was started.
There is actually so much that needs to get caught up on...downloading pictures, organizing my home, laundry, this blog...totally not the first time I've said this, I know. But rather than back-tracking through my life the past few weeks, I would rather focus on the future. Just for right now. Our future is so bright. The Lord has provided so much hope and promise. Best of all, He has spoken to both Garit and I in so many ways. 
For once, we are going to take a vacation from our crazy life. We are going to visit Mississippi for a few weeks. We are going to relax, ride bikes, cook, take a trip down to Louisiana and eat at some awesome places and just experience life. I think this could get addicting really fast, with no real time limit on how long we can be away.
For once we can experience our family without any distractions. Make memories that we will remember for a lifetime. This is the start of our life together. As one. Since we got married this past Tuesday. :0) 
To our beautiful future and a lifetime of happiness!

early mornings & coffee

Bailey decided she wanted to party at 5:30 this morning. 

Good morning sunshine, you do know the sun isn't up yet right?

This mama, likes her sleep. Like a lot.

But I do have to admit, I like the fact that I have some semi-alone time for a whole two hours before my second little monkey wakes up.

Coffee is brewing and breakfast is being toasted. Toast with jam is fancy and easy. Did I mention it's easy? 

You know what else I'm doing? Absolutely nothing. It's beautiful. 

Now I know why old people wake up early and drink coffee.

They have kids.

Did I say old people? Does this classify me as old?

Wait let me rephrase. I know why parents wake up early and drink coffee, voluntarily. 

You kinda have to if you want to keep some of your sanity.

Secret cracked. :)

should I feel guilty?

I confessed to Garit this morning how I missed being able to just leave the house when I wanted to, I miss hanging out with my friends without chasing a toddler or having a newborn on my boob. I miss being able to leave for a weekend with Garit and experience life without diapers, sippy cups and planned naps, feedings and tantrums. Boy, how much our life has changed over the past two years.

As soon as I finished saying this, the guilt set in. It's not that I don't love my girls, I wouldn't change my life for anything. But sometimes I do miss those memories...and that's all they are. Memories. I wonder if our life would ever resemble what it used to be. Not the careless drinking and partying (those were definitely not my finest moments, although at times, they were quite fun) - I really could live without that. But when will we be able to go to a concert and leave the girls for the night? When will we be able to BBQ at the beach with the girls and actually enjoy it?

Garit reassures me that there will be a time when we can do all this again, but it's going to be probably another two years. I predict it will be longer.

I think Garit and I need to make time for some "me" time. Whether it's accomplished with a babysitter so both of us can go out or each of us take turns watching the kids while we have a half day to ourselves to do whatever we want. What I really can't wait for though, is when the girls will be at the age to where we can all go out together.

This brings me back to feeling guilty again but for a different reason. Not because I shouldn't feel this way, but I need to enjoy the here and now. Once we actually get to the point to where we aren't as tied down, I'm sure I'll be looking back wishing I had more time with them when they were little. Lesson learned. Enjoy the now.

#personalityflaw

Honestly, it's an amazing morning. I have an extremely happy and loving toddler running around the house and I was even able to get out and grab a "Trenta" shaken passion iced tea with raspberry (not sure if that's how you properly say it) and a lemon pound cake. Amazing. Except now I have unbelievably horrible heartburn. Can you say tums? Life saver.

Hayden woke up around 8 this morning and played for about 30 minutes while I laid in bed in deep thought.

I had a revelation, similar to one I had a few weeks ago...I care way to much about what people think. Not just about my appearance, but about my actions or what even what I say before I post a status on Facebook. Stupid. I know.

I don't put in nearly half the effort that I should into my ambitions because I'm worried about what others will think about it and if I put my all into something and fail, what will others think?

I was worried about what the lady at Nordstrom was going to think of me when I went to return a few outfits that I didn't use at my maternity shoot.

I wasn't sure what I wanted at Starbucks, but I had to decide what I wanted before I got there because I didn't want to piss someone off for being so indecisive.

Why do I care so much? I don't want to be this way and I definitely don't want to raise Hayden to feel this way. I want her to be a leader, not a follower.

I heard that saying so much from my parents while growing up. I always thought I was a leader, but I guess I thought wrong...

I don't know how to change this, but it needs to be changed.This is a huge personality flaw and I can't believe I'm letting the blogging community know about it. See? Me caring what others will think. again.

Any suggestions in how I can improve would be greatly appreciated.
Comment or email me please bmwatson19@yahoo.com (please DO NOT sell my email)

A day of surprises

I've been tossing it around in my head for a full day now. How would I write a post that means so much to me, but has so much background? How much of the background do I include? Then I realized, it's not the background the matters, but the actual happening that makes it so wonderful.

Yesterday morning was like many past Sunday mornings. Hayden wakes up and cuddles in our bed watching whatever cartoons that are on at the moment. I try to decided which service I want to go to. 8:30 is awfully early, but I go because otherwise I will talk myself out of going all together.

I decide to go to the first service and almost every time I go, I ask Garit if he wants to go with me. He always opts out and says he'll stay home with Hay. I learned to leave it there and not get upset. This is where some of the background information should be inserted. I'll just say, he's had a hard time letting the Lord in his heart and with past and ongoing situations, it truly seems like a fire-burning door that I was trying to knock on whenever I brought up him going to church. So I stopped asking. I stopped getting upset. I just continued to pray.

While I rolled out of bed, something was nagging at me to ask Garit to join me at morning service. I resisted at first, but then realized that if he wanted to go, he wasn't going to invite himself. That's just his personality. The next thing I knew, I was asking him meekly "did you want to come with me today? I have had Hayden already enrolled for a while now, so she can play with the kids in the nursery."

I was completely blown away when he said "Do you want me to go?"

me: "Seriously?! YES!"
him: "Okay. Sure I'll go."

This might not seem like a big deal. It is. It is huge. I got ready as fast as I could, praying he wouldn't change his mind within the time of getting ready.

We got to church and I prayed that the sermon would speak to him. It was amazing. I was so focused on what he could get out of it. It was based on ACTS 26:19. It was perfect. I thought he would take certain aspects of it and apply it a certain way. I was so excited to hear what he took from it. I was praying that he was listening and having an open heart. I was so nervous.

We got in the car and I asked him how he liked it. He comments on how the congregation was a younger crowd and he liked that. That was the extent of the conversation. Then we ended up putting Hayden down for a nap and we decided to take one ourselves. I was dying to ask him more. So we were laying in bed and the question came out of my mouth before I could stop it.

"Did you get anything from the service?"

I was hoping but preparing myself that he wouldn't say anything near "yes, I want to walk with the Lord. I was hoping he would say something in that direction. In the direction of wanting to start to have a relationship with Jesus.

His response completely left me baffled. Like literally I am 100% positive my mouth was open for a good 5 seconds with a dumbfounded look on my face.

He says, "Yes, you probably aren't going to like what I have to say" <- This made my heart drop and my stomach turn. Thinking he was going to continue to tell me "church isn't for me" or " I think these people are weird Jesus lovers".
 
Nope. He continues to surprise me. He said "I need to make things right with my father. The lord is telling me to do this." You would have to know the background to get the full effect that this would have on me.

I resent his father. I have so much hate for his father.

I am still trying to be the good Christian I claim to be and let go of everything. It's been hard. Really really really hard. I have prayed so much for his dad and it seems to do nothing.

Garit continues to related the verses that the pastor read to the reasoning as to why he needs to make things right. I was baffled. He was right. I didn't like what he had to say. I actually replied negatively towards him at first. I asked him, offended, if he was mocking me. Mocking my religion. This was so out of left field. I was waiting for a "haha got you!"

He was dead serious. He got more from the service than I ever thought he would get from it. I was so shocked.

He wants to talk to his father and make things right. Once the shock wore off, my hate towards his dad turned to hope. If I could lead Garit to the Lord and this is what he got from the first service, there has to be hope for his dad, right?

This isn't to say that things will be fixed between his father and him- or their companies, but it's a start. An amazing start that was kicked off by church. I can't have a negative view on this. The more I threw the idea around in my head and replayed what Garit said and how passionate he was with what the Lord said to him, the more I opened my heart and encouraged him.

I am so proud of him for taking the steps to try and make things better. He is doing Jesus would do. The lord is guiding him and he is listening and ready to take action. I am so blessed and proud to have him by my side.

I am still deathly afraid that Garit will be hurt again. He has experienced so much hurt over the past three years from his father's actions and hurtful words. I would also hate to see him not get the results he wishes for and in turn, hold it against Lord and push away.

All I can do is pray. Sunday was an amazing day. We had a great weekend.

I really want to not care

I love love love the styles of Anthropologie. Whenever I go there or online I find many things that I drool over, but never end up purchasing. Reason #1 being I’m fat and pregnant, so nothing actually fits. But reason #2 is because I care too much about what other people will think. The styles are gorgeous and I think many can agree on that. But you know how you kind of have a stigma of your style/personality that’s kind of set in stone after high school? And, if you try to change it, people look at you differently or you’re considered a “poser”? I think that’s the word. Anyhow, I think know I have the style of a school teacher. Bleh. ORRR get this….a mom. I’m 23 (I think, I honestly forget) and I don’t think I deserve the title of dressing like a "mom".

I don’t want to be dressing like most 23-year-olds I see with their ta-tas out or the short shorts, but I really don’t want to be put in the style category as a teacher or mom. Does this make sense?

I truly wish I just didn’t care. I wish I could just dye my hair a fun color, do a crazy cut and have extremely cute, different clothing. To sum it up, I would love to dress like a hippie. Not positive G would stay with me though.

How comfy does this look?? Yep. I know.

I might have to get this beauty.

mmmmmm. 

Loving this so much and I don't know why.

All of these outfits are gorgeous and I would love to wear them…I wish I didn’t care what people had to think. I really want to not care. BTW, isn’t the photography in all of these pictures exquisite? 

Mhhmm.

If I had the choice to do my hair any way without ever thinking twice what other people would think, I would love to do something similar to this:

I don’t know…I guess I can always dream. Maybe one day I’ll get the balls to not care.