day 251 of 365

I am perfectly imperfect, beautiful in my flaws, sure of my insecurities, absolute chaos..a beautiful disaster

Monday Mugs (cry baby)

Taking a break from Operation Clean House to do a few blogs.

Today is "Cry Baby" at Monday Mugs!
Here are a few of my favorites!

Day 250 of 365

It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.
-- Lena Horne

Pics of the week (project 365 of my own)

Kendall's new back pack for school

Isaac's new backpack
Dress-up

Showing off her new cowgirl boots AGAIN

Sweet girl waiting for the BALL

I don't want my picture taken mom!

Day 249 of 365

Love, like paint, can make life beautiful when you spread it around, but it simply dries up when you don’t use it!

Friday is here!

This week’s questions are:

1.What is something you wished you’d learned to do earlier in life? Pray. (Really pray not like just when you are in trouble but an everyday conversation to God pray.) I would have learned so much more about myself and been much more grounded.
2.What is your biggest pet peeve with the military? Hmmmmm....I guess based on recent & pst events in our lives....not letting the service member come home for deaths in the family. I am not talking about your great aunt sally on your mother's side but people that you have geuninely been close to. I think that they deserve the closure that only seeing your loved one & being able to say good-bye can give.
3.What tourist attraction near you have you never seen? Not really sure....we haven't really explored the Outer Banks at all & some of those are pretty close!
4.What are you avoiding doing right now? Getting ready to take the kids to the pool. AGAIN!
5.Wine, beer or liquor?A nice dessert wine or a beer every now and then.

1. Are you a neat sleeper or a messy sleeper? Neat. Very rarely are the covers distrubed unless I am having to fight the hubs for the covers!
2. Fill in the blank. I wish I was more of a dynamic speaker.
3. What is something that you wish you had been warned about? CREDIT CARDS!! UGH...we would be so much better off if we hadn't had to pay for all of those!
4. What was the best thing you ever found at a garage sale/flea market? A 2 year old double jogger in awesome condition that regularly retails for $500 for $40!
5. If you could have any meal brought to you right now, what would it be? As long as it's not fish or liver bring over anything!!

2003

Our little family (before we became a real family!)

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And...here we go!

1. Life is beautiful.
2. My continuing education credits keep going.
3. My last text message (or IM) ended in these three words: C U soon love.
4. Seafood is what I'm thinking about for dinner sometime soon.
5. On the 1st day of August I was excited because my birthday is this month!
6. Some people would describe me as lively and energetic.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to small group with great friends, tomorrow my plans include church & life group and Sunday, I want to enjoy my volunteer work at the church nursery desk and try not to focus on the fact that Ben has to work!

1. Today for breakfast I haven't had anything yet. But I am thinking maybe oatmeal this morning. Ben has me craving it since he told the kids that if they didn't eat their dinner last night that is all that they would be having!
2. My go to/never fail recipe a really simple corned beef brisket in the crock pot. Easy and yummy!
3. Something I eat that other people think is weird is I don't think that I eat anything super weird but Benny thinks that I eat things strangely. I eat certain foods first, I don't like to mix my food, certain things can't touch on the plate, etc.....
4. My worst cooking disaster ever was when I made a pizza for us in California. I did really great adding all the ingredients that we like but put WAY TOO MUCH garlic on it. Neither one of us could really choke it down!
5. If I could only eat one flavor of ice cream the rest of my life it would be chocolate with peanut butter. Yum!
6. One food I hate and avoid at all costs is fish. Just really can't stand it!
7. What is your favorite meal? Breakfast, lunch, or dinner? Dinner especially if we have a date night!

Marriage advice

Marriage advice

No it is not coming from me! I only wish that I had this much insight. I found a blog yesterday at http://lysaterkeurst.com/ It is beautiful! Her title says it all "Leading Women in the Adventure of Faith." I am posting a clip from her post yesterday that I found very comforting and wanted to share. Happy Reading!

I shared with my friend that when I was single I thought marriage was all about finding the right partner. I thought if you find “the one,” you’ll be happy, secure, and fulfilled. I do think it’s good to have a list of standards that you look for in a spouse. However, it can never be with the expectation that if you find that special someone, he’ll right all your wrongs and fill up all your insecurities. The problem with this thinking is the pressure it will eventually put on your spouse.

To expect another person to make you feel happy, secure, and fulfilled will leave you disappointed at best and disillusioned at worst. Even a great husband makes a very poor God.

Only God can settle those deep heart-needs. A man can never do this. If a husband could meet every need his wife had, we’d have no need for God. Therefore, instead of just focusing on finding the right partner, let God work on your heart to help you become the right partner.

Getting married doesn’t instantly make you selfless… it makes you realize how very selfish you can be at times.

Getting married doesn’t make you feel loved… it makes you realize love is more of a decision you make than a feeling you feel.

Getting married doesn’t take away loneliness… it makes you realize true companionship comes not when you demand it but rather when you give it to another person.

So, what does marriage give? A beautiful chance to…

…make the choice to love.

…laugh whether or not the jokes are funny.

…fold his collar over his tie every morning.

…pretend like you don’t need flowers, but delight when he buys them anyway.

…cheer him on through both failures and successes.

…tell him he’s a great man everyday.

…thank God for the privilege of being his wife.

Day 248 of 365

Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. ~Simone Signoret

Thursday Five

I am so happy that someone has picked this back up because I missed it!Here are my FIVE things that have made me happy this week.....1. Doing fun summer stuff this week: park, playdate, pool, library, & the pool again tomorrow if not the museum too!2. Having the hubby fly over the house twice this week! We have been married for 6 and 1/2 years but I still get butterflies and excited when I see him fly.3. Knowing that we are going to be staying put until next summer. I really wasn't feeling the December move to a new location!4. Getting a new bookcase for our bedroom to get it more organized and cleanly!5. Enrolling Kendall in her first sport ever (soccer) and man is she excited!

Week 35 of 52

Kendall and I before the water slide

Isaac and I in the kids water park section

With my friend and college roommate, Jamie. (I think great names make you like each other!!)

It's time to stop hiding behind that camera of yours. Your family is missing you in the picture. So it's time to post a picture of YOU (yes, you) every Thursday with your child, your spouse, your friend, your dog, or even by yourself. Just get in the picture, you'll be glad you did! And just jump in now with 1 of 52, you can do it!

Day 247 of 365 (I love this one!!)

I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life. ~Rita Rudner

Time for Wednesday!

Wordful Wednesday

When we were back in Pennsylvania, Ben and I took the kids to my college campus to see all of the changes that have been occuring. (Man there are ALOT!) One stop on our tour was to the nursing building where I spent a large part of my college career. Here are the kids in the room where we had all of our core classes. So fun to see them in there!
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Wordless Wednesday (Fun with uncles)

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Way back in 2005 before the Kenny Chesney concert. I was listening to his cd earlier so that is why I hunted down this picture!!

Day 246 of 365

"Jesus came not to deny life, but to offer life, and life more abundant. We are not to retreat from life, pinning our hopes on "elsewhere", but to know that we will come to that final destination best by living fully here and now, be it through joy, pain, or a mix of both." - Madeleine L'Engle

What the "Army Wives" don't tell you.

I was reading a fellow military blogger's post from this morning. She was talking about a person that told her she knew "how military wives felt or what we go through after watching the show army wives." This fellow blogger was "speechless." (As was I after reading about it!) Now I was not there for their conversation & I am sure that this person meant well but comments like that leave military spouses all over the world feeling more lonely and irritated than ever. Being a military spouse is like nothing else that I have ever experienced.

Now it is not my intent to complain about "Army Wives" because I watch & enjoy the show myself or to belittle civilian wives. (Marriage is a hard job no matter whether it is military or civilian.) The show is entertaining and does show the public some of what we go through as military spouses. However, unless you have lived, ate, and breathed military life, there is really no way to describe it in words, a television show, or think that you "know how we feel."

This fellow blogger posed the question

What have you done, felt, learned as a military wife that you don't think you quite get from Army Wives?

So here are a few of mine in no particular order.....

how to prepare to have your firstborn baby by yourself with your husband in Iraq.

how to build a house for the two of you without your spouses input and opinions.

how to keep your husband in the loop of your children's lives through pictures and videos of their first steps, birthdays, words, and other activities.

how to hear your husband cry for the first time ever and not be able to reach out to hold him because he is at war

how to pull on base & not cry when you see someone else's welcome home banners and yellow ribbons when you know you have 7 more months to go

how to comfort your children when they cry for their daddy, look at you with tear filled eyes & say "I miss my daddy," or explain that daddy really doesn't live in the computer or phone

how to plan a vacation around deployments, training exercises, and the squadron's schedule

how to roll over at night and not sigh wishing that your husband was lying there next to you

why you carry your cell phone with you ALL the time even to the bathroom for fear of missing a precious call. Crying when you indeed MISSED one of those calls or crying just to hear his voice. Having so much to say and not having anything to say at all but not wanting to waste a single second

mourning family members passing alone because your husband cannot be returned home during a time of war

Murphy's law of the military that everything CAN and WILL go wrong when your spouse is not there to lean on

And mostly, hugging and kissing your husband (possibly for the last time) to watch him turn & leave to go to war.......OVER and Over again.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T (completing him challenge) & Marriage Monday

It is time for the completing him challenge of the week at

R-E-S-P-E-C-T and Your Husband

It's Week #8 in our marriage challenge and this challenge is straight from the Bible:
R-E-S-P-E-C-T Your Husband!

Ephesians 5:33 says "Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband."

God's command to wives is to respect our husbands - unconditionally. Our men are not boy scouts trying to earn badges of honor. God does not say - respect the husband who is "worthy" of respect. It is simply their position of husband that we are to respect.

Dr. Emerson Eggerich says in his book "Love and Respect" that if you asked women if they'd rather their friends love or respect them - the majority would say love. But if you asked men if they'd rather their friends love or respect them - the men would answer respect. We are hard wired this way - God created men with the need to feel respected and adequate.

Sometimes we women "mock" the male "ego" - but it truly is tender. Deep down - there's insecurity and they need to know that indeed they are adequate, they are enough, they are worthy of our respect.

Sometimes it's hard to know exactly what it is that makes your husband feel disrespected. Sometimes the strangest comment I make will make my husband angry. I don't see it disrespectful at all - and it baffles me - yet he is clearly offended. It has taken time for me to learn what it is that makes him feel disrespected.

This week - take some time to assess your husband's respect-o-meter. Ask him what sort of things you do that make him feel disrespected and respected. Work on weeding out disrespectful thoughts and attitudes and exchanging them for respectful ones.

And remember you respect your husband because of who God is and his commands. You respect your husband because of who you are and your character. You respect your husband because you have been given grace and you freely give it. You respect your husband because of your vows at the marriage altar. And you respect your husband because you do indeed love him and desire to please him.
For more check out http://womenlivingwell-courtney.blogspot.com/

I know in my heart that I RESPECT my husband for MANY things. He is a godly man that leads our family well. I RESPECT his occupation. I know that it is something that I could never do and I am grateful that he does it for our family and for our country. I RESPECT the kind of man that he is and what he wants to be. There are many things that I RESPECT about him.

I also know that there may be things that I do that may not seem to be DisRESPECTFUL to me but Ben may take to be so. I am going to try hard not to do some of those things (this is something that I have been working on for weeks, that my prayer partner helps to hold me accountable for) and see if I can find out what else I can do to limit it.

As for the past 2 challenges, we haven't talked about his goals yet. Ok so that is a lie....we did talk about ONE of his work goals for the next year. I hope to revisit that conversation soon!

I have been making a consicous effort to make food that is more pleasing to Ben. I have been adding more veggies to our meals and trying to be more health conscious. His favorite meal is Indian Fry Bread and I am afraid that I am going to have to defer this request to my Mother-in-law as I don't know how to make it!

I commend you all for this journey that we are on! It is our God given duty to be pleasing to our husbands. I would like to say that it is easy but sometimes it is just not! I can say that I am enjoying trying to be the woman that God created me to be for my husband.
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Is having Marriage Monday today! Go and visit you will love it!

Prov. 31:11a "The heart of her husband trusts in her."

Caring about having our husband's support helps him trust us. When we wait and pray, it helps him trust us. It might be starting an in home business, doing daycare in your home, getting a gym membership, teaching children's church, repainting your kitchen, being the team soccer mom, or writing a book ... the "it" doesn't really matter. What matters is that our husband is up front waving the "all clear" flag.

Last week we took some time to consider confidence crushers; later this week I want to put the spotlight on some of the secrets to REAL confidence. In marriage, I think this is one of those secrets. God builds confidence between us when we go about marriage His way, instead of trying to force our agenda without or in spite of God's plan.

We have the confidence OF our spouse when we wait on and value his support, and we have confidence IN our spouse when we wait on and pray for his support.
For more come check out http://comehaveapeace.blogspot.com/

10 Things (July)

1. Fun with family. (Of course that is just about every month but it always makes me smile and gives me joy!)

2. Watching my children enjoy themselves at an amusement park that I used to frequent when I was younger.

3. My son....his smile always makes me Grin!
4. The kids first fishing trip. (And watching my parents and hubby have a great time with them!)

5. Knowing that small towns still honor America and all who fight for it even when it is not a patriotic holiday!

6. Showing the kids my old college campus & getting them a little souvenier

7. Facepaint!!

8. Pollen smeared faces after smelling flowers
9. Having time to stop and smell the flowers

10. Visiting with family and friends that I don't get to see nearly often enough.

Day 245 of 365

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Getting to know you

The Q's..

1. If you were to win an award today, what would it be for? Golly.....hmmmmm "Doing the best I can with what God has given me" award?!?
2. What is your shoe style? I love traditional pieces with a little bit of flair that are not going to be out of style the next month.
3 Does your car reflect your personality? It can for some people. I think too often it is a status symbol. For me, it is out need & functional purpose. (Suburban for our huge family! 2 adults, 2 kids, 2 dogs, & 1 cat traveling in one vehicle!!)
4. If you could take over someones body for a day..whose would you choose? My hubby. It would be awesome to be able to see things from his perspective & to fly for a day!!
5. Love or be loved? BOTH!! I think they each have their own unique characteristics.
6. If you were on death row, what last meal would you choose? Hmmm.....a nice steak, crab legs, corn on the cob, pumpkin pie, & baklava.
7. Have you been on vacation this Summer, if so where? We went to Highlands, NC (western part of NC past Ashville) then to my parents in PA, and we will be traveling at the end of the month to Gatlinburg, TN.
8. What is your favorite food related guilty pleasure? H0-ho's (or swiss cake rolls)

I fought for you

I saw this on a fellow bloggers site and had to share it. I hope that you enjoy! Semper Fi!

Day 244 of 365

“Patience makes a women beautiful in middle age”
Elliot Paul