Perfect Parenting

Yesterday I was insulted and called a bad mother and a few other ridiculous comments, not by anyone of importance, and it was by a person that I have less then zero respect for. So I wasn't really hurt by his ignorance, and anyone who knows me can attest that this isn't true but it has made me think.

Before you have children you think you know it all. You say my kids wont do that, they will never behave like this. Man, you get a wake up call when that time actually comes. Truth is you have no idea what is in store for you and how your life will change. When I had Madison, I was barely 20, and clueless. Of course I thought I knew what I was doing. I baby sat most of my teens and I knew it would be different but not that much different. Boy, was I in for a wake up call! What I wasn't prepared for was a newborn waking up every 2 hours to eat, be changed, and tended to. I wasn't prepared for living like a zombie for the first 6 months of her life, not remembering if I had eaten or showered half of the time. I was not prepared for the terrible twos to start at 13 months, and I surely had no idea what was in store for me when I added another newborn into the mix. To say that Maddie was a handful was an understatement. I have some stories...but that's for another time.

 I remember sitting up at night and crying because I was so overwhelmed. I wanted to be a mom so badly and yet I cried every night. I just didn't know what to do. But we took it one day at a time and made it through and things got easier. I got older, I learned patience, and understanding. I learned to deal with things differently. Now don't get me wrong, there are still days where I sit and cry because I am overwhelmed. There are days that I look forward to bed time because the kids are diving me crazy, and there are days that I think I have no idea what I am doing. But at the end of the day, when I am tucking my kids in and saying bedtime prayers, I am thankful. I love being a mom, and while I may not do it right all of the time, I am still learning.

By no means am I perfect. I am not a perfect person, wife, and definitely not a perfect mother. I make mistakes. I yell too much, I overreact too often, my house is often messy (you try keeping a spotless house with 6 kids everyday.) But I am learning. I have come so far in these last 8 1/2 years of motherhood, and I still have a long way to go. Truth is, no one knows what they are doing. It's easy to sit on the sidelines and judge others. To see a messy house and make a comment about how dirty it is. To see a child throwing a tantrum in the store and quickly say, "if that was my child they wouldn't act like that." It's so easy to cast judgement on others (I am also guilty of this) but you don't see the big picture. My pastor was speaking on Sunday about Life Application. He was talking about parenting and living your life with love. He said if you do one thing different today and yesterday then you are making progress. And I try to apply that to my life. I may yell, and overreact, and be in a bad mood but I am learning. I am growing. I apologize when I am wrong. I admit when I make mistakes. And I am learning to live my life with love. So think twice before you quickly cast judgement on others, because we are all learning and growing, and striving to be the best parent we can be.

Happy Birthday Caden!

My little man turned 6 today! I can't believe how fast time flies! I feel like it was just yesterday that I was giving birth to my little 8lb 6oz little boy. And now he is SIX! We had such a busy day, we celebrated his birthday at Skateland (Pirate themed) with some of our friends and family. In spite of a few bumps and bruises he did really well out there on the floor, and he had a blast! After his party he had a soccer game, and then he went with Leo to see the Baltimore Blast Championship game. It was quite the day!

Happy Birthday Caden, you are my pride and joy, and I love you more then words can express! You make my life so much brighter and I love being your mommy! I hope you had the best birthday ever!

Here are some birthday pics:

Birthday boy & Daddy eating pizza

Caden's awesome Birthday cake that his Godmother made

Time for cake!

Caden , Alanna & Maddie

Birthday skate

This one is blurry but you get the idea

Judgmental, Bible Thumping Christians

I don't often speak about my faith or beliefs unless it's with close friends. I've always been afraid to rock the boat. I've always been open that I follow Jesus but I never wanted to come across as an uptight Christian. It's one of those things that I chose not to bring up because I am not a theological person and I can't always back it up with the word of God. It's something I have always struggled with, and I've always lived life on the fence so to speak. I have my church friends and my other friends, and I have a hard time sharing my faith with my other friends. If they ask I will gladly talk about it, but I never brought it up. I have been asking God in my own time with him to really just open me up. I don't want to be one of those hypocritical, bible thumping, judgmental Christians, but I want to share his love with all of my friends. I want to do it in a real way. Not preaching, or throwing scriptures in peoples face, but in a real, one on one, friendly conversation. It's something that has been weighing on my heart for a while but I just don't know how to execute it. I see so many of my Facebook friends posting about how God isn't real, I even see people who used to be Christians and are now atheists. They post so openly about their beliefs, so why is this something I struggle with?

My Pastor showed a video of Penn Jillette of Penn and Teller. He's an open atheist and he made a video blog where he shared a story of a man who gave him a Bible. He said that the mans realness, and love touched his heart more then anyone ever has. He also made a statement that has stuck with me he said "How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate someone to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?"


I can't seem to shake that. How much do I hate the people in my life not to share everlasting life with them? I want to be real, and I want to be honest, and I want to give people hope. How can I do that if I don't open up and walk across the room and share my heart? Our Pastor has been talking about sharing your story and so I will leave you with this. This is my story.

I was raised in Sunday school. My parents took me to their Methodist church from the time I was a baby. I learned about Jesus in Sunday school but I never knew him. I had my first real encounter with Christ when I was 14 at our summer church camp. I went every year with my friends and had an amazing time. I learned about Jesus, Christian music, and that it was OK to have blue hair, tattoos & piercings and still know God. It was honestly life changing. I will hold those memories with me for a lifetime and I made some amazing friends there. I went to camp until the summer I turned 18, but when I was 16 I started dating my ex husband and started to go to his church. It was a whole new world, it was Pentecostal, but the crazy hair, tats and piercings were HUGE no no's. That was a sin. They were very strict and I often felt like I played church just to fit in. I don't think I had a real relationship with God because I didn't know where I stood. I had sex, I drank, I did things I shouldn't have, then I went to church and cried and asked God to forgive me. It turned into a ritual. A few years later I was married and I still struggled with who I was in Christ. I was so depressed, in a terrible relationship, and I hated myself. I wanted to die. I cried myself to sleep almost every night, but I was trapped. I began to pray more, but not really asking for help, I asked him why? Why would you allow me to live like this? How could you leave me alone? I was broken and empty and defeated. And then my life started changing. I know it sounds cliche but it's true. God started to pull me out of it. My ex husband and I split up, Leo came back into my life after many years and things were brighter. It took a while to shed my insecurities and heal all of the broken pieces, which I will admit comes back on occasion when I least expect it. And here I am 5 yrs later and it feels like that was a whole lifetime ago. I sometimes think back to those times and it just doesn't feel real. I closed that chapter in my life and I feel like a new person. People who knew me before can attest to this too. But my point in all of this is I thought I was alone and I thought my world was shattered but God had bigger plans for me. I wouldn't be who I am today without being broken. I wouldn't appreciate my amazing loving husband, without all of the heartache. God knew what he was doing and I need to start sharing his love. I am thankful for all He has done in my life and the best way to share that is to just be there for someone else. I want to change that persona that Christians are judgmental,  bible thumping, hypocrites and just be real. And that is my new goal.

I'm going to add the video that I referenced so you can watch it for yourselves.

My Healthy Eating Baking Mishap

So I have been doing pretty well with my dieting and eating healthy. I have found some great recipes, and have overloaded on the fruits and veggies. I'm down 5 lbs so far! woohoo!

So the other day a friend posted a pic of some very yummy looking Paleo Brownies. She has lost over 100 lbs (don't quote me on the exact number, but it was a lot and she looks fantastic) You can check her Facebook page out here: This Mom Is Losing It. Anyway, back to the story. I was dying for some chocolate and decided to pick up the ingredients that I needed and give it a try.

I merrily mixed the ingredients, filled my brand new Pampered Chef brownie pan, and then stuck them in the oven. About 10 mins later I start to smell something burning. It smelled like burnt marshmallows, so I hurried to the oven only to find that my batter exploded everywhere! My square brownie pan looked like 1 giant pan covered in tar. It was all over the pan, my oven racks, and the bottom of my oven. So I pulled it out, wiped out the oven, scrapped the mess off so you could see the squares and stuck it back in. I figured it was worth a second try, right? Well needless to say every time I checked on it, it looked like bubbling tar. I asked my sister in law, who was here at the time, if brownie batter was suppose to bubble and she informed me that in fact it is not. So much to my dismay, my brownies turned out to be nothing but sticky chocolate tar (which you can see at the top. The Left pic is my friends delicious looking brownies, and my tar is on the right.) Moral of the story....brownies are not suppose to be healthy. I will stick with the box kind from now on and have a cheat day once in a while.

Side note: She did make me some and is sending them via mail. I can't wait to try them.

Standing Up For What You Believe In

I met these people when I was 12 at The Sky is The Limit Theatre.  We became family, we grew up together, and as you can see they are still here through weddings and kids and everything in between. Without this theatre I would not have had so many wonderful memories, had my children , or even indirectly met my husband. Love you guys!

In the beginning of December it was announced that our community center was to be sold. This was all done backhandedly by our local councilman Kevin Kamenetz and put in the paper for all of us to find out. There was no community input and they didn't even contact any of the programs that are housed there. We have at least 10 programs that work out of the building, including an indoor soccer arena and a 650 person fully handicapped accessible theatre.

 I was raised in that theatre, I started when I was 12 and continued until I got pregnant with Alanna. Now Madison performs there. Out of it I have learned tolerance, acceptance and ultimately they are family...in more ways then 1. haha. Madison and Caden were both practically born there and I was even performing when I was 4 mths pregnant with Alanna. Not only that Caden plays soccer there as well.

So once the word got out I hit the ground running. I refuse to allow the politicians to just come in and tear down our community....our home. I started a Facebook page Save The North Point Government Center to let our voices be heard. I've also sent a ton of emails which very few were responded to. As of now we are at over 800 Likes and we have a community meeting set up for tomorrow and a picket next week. We are not going down without a fight.

What I don't understand is how people can be so ignorant to everything going on. People are commenting about tearing it down. "There's nothing over there" "We are wasting our time" People are so blind to anything that does not directly effect their own little bubbles, their own little world. It's pathetic  People are willing to just roll over and allow the government officials to come in to our community and do whatever it is they want to do. How can people just accept it? This is our community, our families, our lives, and I am not about to allow some well paid money hungry politician to come into our community which they consider the "dumping ground" of Baltimore County and just tear apart our community. We have so many vacant stores in this area and this is just going to end up another vacant building to add to it, but the problem is now our children will be the ones left without all of the activities.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone! Leo and I rang in the new year with our lovely group of friends, which ended with an engagement! So that was exciting.

 As I sit here reflecting on 2012 I realize that it was a pretty great year. My best friend got married and I was her matron of honor, I was also a bridesmaid in another wedding for a close friend. I helped plan our 10 year high school reunion. I celebrated my 3rd wedding anniversary and went to my first Raven's game. I also survived 12/21/12.  Overall I'd say it was a pretty good year for me.

This year we have family resolutions on top of my own personal ones.

• Eating clean. 

 I went through the house and tossed all of the junk and processed foods and went shopping for lots of veggies. I have to lose this weight, I am at my heaviest right now and that needs to change. So Leo and I have decided to get serious about our health. I know this is everyone's resolution but it's not my resolution as much as a life style change. It's also so much easier when my husband is involved as well. Our biggest problem is eating out and that will go hand in hand with our budgeting .

• Get organized. 

I am going to organize my life. I live in constant chaos, and it starts as soon as the kids get out of school. Homework, trying to prepare dinner, dance, soccer, theatre. Not to mention trying to keep up on laundry and housework. Starting yesterday I am in the process of meal planning for the weeks and setting up a better routine. 

• Set and stick to a budget

 The biggest problem we have is saving money. I'll admit , I'm a spender. I love to shop, and not just for me but for anything. Kids stuff, house stuff, it doesn't matter I love it. We also love to eat out. But I found this great easy to use free app for my phone called Budgets . My goal is to set my monthly budget and put money in my savings each week and stick to it!

A few of my personal resolutions are:

• Read 25 books
• Have a closer walk with God
• Enjoy every moment especially with my kids

I hope everyone has a fantastic year , I am looking forward to all of the awesome things to come!

A Series Of Unfortunate Events

Twas the day after Christmas and the house is a wreck. Not a creature was stirring except for the kids....which decided it would be a great idea to wake up before me and Leo and open every single gift under the tree and throw the boxes and paper everywhere. Which of course when I woke up was less then pleased. After deciding that I was not cleaning today because it was snowy and dreary and I wanted to be lazy, I went back to bed leaving Leo to deal with the kids and the mess.

Well that was just the beginning.

 Once Leo left for work I made the kids go clean their rooms to make room for all of their new stuff, while I ordered pizza. Once the pizza got here I went to get money from my wallet only to realize I was missing $30. Once we all finished our pizza I went up to the kids rooms to inspect and help set us some of their new things and the dogs jumped on the table and ate an entire pizza. Awesome. Since they ate all of my pizza, I let them out and they decided it would be fun to take off and tour the neighborhood....in the dark....in the rain. So I had to chase them through the neighborhood, at least this time I had shoes on. Once I finally caught Molly I had to carry her 25 lb butt back home and my head is pounding. Skip forward a few hours, the kids are sleeping in the basement and I hear a crash. I go downstairs to see my basement window laying on the floor, which of course scared me to death and I called 911. The police came out and looked around, they said that the dogs barking may have scared them off if someone was out there. Once I calmed down my headache became worse and as I was getting some migraine meds I stepped on a thumb tack. Seriously? I think it's time for me to go to bed!