Word to my mother

I get to blog about being a mom all the time so for mother's day, I thought I would tell you a little about the woman that taught me everything I know and loves my girls as much as I do.  She's my mom.
And she's amazing.

She has always been one of my best friends.  I never went through a phase where I thought she was uncool or I didn't want her around.  On the contrary, I had friends that wanted to come to my house because they loved my mom too.

She's the most selfless person I know (almost to a fault). She has always put everyone else's needs ahead of her own.  She has a wonderful, giving, and loving heart.

She gave birth to me...without an epidural! Of course she had to leave the room when my epidural didn't work with Skylar, but that's a whole other post.  She did manage to be in the room when Bailey was born. (and arrived by plane less than 12 hours after Reagan was born).

She actually picked out Bailey's name.

She works hard at whatever she does and does it right the first time.  She's a peacemaker and doesn't raise her voice (Clearly, I still have much to learn from her).

She's crazy funny! When she and her sister get together, my sides literally hurt from laughing so much.

(She's going to hate this picture!)

She loves to give hugs.

She takes my kids to Disneyland!

She loves her family and God with all her heart.

She's the only woman I know that can come through a nervous breakdown, a brain aneurysm, a stroke, and a TIA (all within a couple years), and come out on the other side with even more beauty, more patience, more grace, and more faith.

I can talk to her multiple times a day and we still do not run out of things to talk about (something our husbands will never understand).

She genuinely loves her grandkids! (and being a grandma).

She has always been my biggest fan!
I'm blessed because she's mine.

Happy Mother's Day Mom! I love you to the moon and back!

I ain't afraid of no ghosts

No really.  I'm not.  Of course, if one were standing face to face with me, I might get a case of the heebie jeebies.  But it's not a fear I have. 

I'm also not afraid of spiders.  Or even most bugs.  

I have no fear of heights, new situations, or flying.  

But reptiles and rodents? Forget it.  I know most people don't like mice, rats, lizards and snakes, but I have an actual fear of them.  I'm working on it though.  Because as you may recall (according to Reagan), Fear is sin.  We are not called to live in fear.  

I have actually been gripped by fear a few times in my life.  It wasn't a good feeling.  

When Reagan was nine weeks old, some friends of ours (that had gone through a parenting class with us), lost their five month old baby to SIDS.  Not only did I feel helpless to support them, but I was gripped by fear every time I put Reagan down.  Through time, and lots of prayer, I was able to get over that fear.  

I've also been gripped by fear when Brian goes away on a trip.  I am convinced that every little noise is someone breaking into the house.  It never is.  (Yet another reason I am not called to be a military wife).  

We have had rodents in two houses now.  The first was rats (and I will spare you details), but it was bad enough to make us move to another house.  Then, we had a few mice work their way into our current home.  Somehow the mice weren't AS scary for me, but I still don't like them.  

I thought we had eradicated our home of the critters (all 4 of them) but when I was cleaning the guest room last week I found more droppings.  Just 3, but still.  I started to get that "feeling" again.  Are these new droppings? Are they old ones that I missed somehow? If they are new, How are they getting in?! Are they in this room right now?! Where else have they been? What is that smell? (turns out 'that smell' was Baileys diaper by the way).  Brian set out traps again, and we went about our daily business.  Of course, secretly I was looking for droppings elsewhere in the house.  I even thought about banning black socks in our house because every little piece of fuzz looked like a dropping to me.  Needless to say, we didn't catch anything.

People have told me "They're just mice." Or "Mickey is a mouse! How can you be afraid of a mouse?!" But that's like telling someone afraid of flying "It's just a giant metal capsule with two tiny engines that have been known to fail occasionally."  Not reassuring really.  

Especially at night.  When I have to go to the bathroom, and I see this:

Yes, it's a harmless stuffed spider that used to be attached to a children's book.  And I'm not afraid of spiders, remember?

But from farther away......

and without glasses or contacts....

It looks more like this.....

You get the idea....

I was reading to the girls from their Children's Bible and in the creation chapter it says very clearly that God gave man "dominion over all the animals." We are not to fear the things we have dominion over.  

Also, the verse in Second Timothy has been popping up in several places lately.

"For I have not give you a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and a sound mind." 2 Tim. 1:7

With all of that in mind, I walked very carefully over to that rabid mouse in my bathroom, towel in hand, ready to capture him! I threw it over him quickly! I was victorious!! I had conquered my fear!! 

As I scooped up that mouse in the towel, I realized he was not moving.  

I squeezed the towel a bit to see if I could feel him in there.  Of course that was when I realized that I had captured....

a stuffed, 

smiling, 

spider.  

You might be laughing, and I did too.  But then I realized that it was still a major feat for me.  

I may not be afraid of spiders, or heights, or flying, but for today I can also say 

"I ain't afraid of no mouse either!" 

Now....about those lizards....

What are YOU afraid of???

Something about Bailey

I have no idea what this child got in her hair, but this is how she woke up yesterday.  It took more than water and shampoo to get it out.  I had to put a drop of dish soap on her hair to dissolve "whatever" it was.  Today her hair is back to lying flat (and smells lemony fresh).

A Winner!

Thanks to everyone that entered my cleaning contest! It seems like the bathroom is almost everyone's least favorite place to clean.  So I chose the right cleaner to give away :D

Our big winner (chosen by random.org) is:
Number 7: Jennifer@ The Middleton Family
(If you don't know Jenn, you should check out her blog.  She has two adorable, and quite humorous, kids and they are in the process of adopting a child from China).

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

7

Timestamp: 2010-05-03 15:50:08 UTC

How appropriate that:

Jennifer said...

Great giveaway Heather! I hate cleaning the bathrooms!!!! Ugh!

APRIL 29, 2010 5:21 PM 

Jennifer, I have your email, so I will email you to get your address.

That was fun! I might have to do another one soon! Jenn, I'd love to hear what you think of the cleaner!!

The sun is shining today and we are cleaning a bit before heading outside to enjoy it.
Have a blessed day!

A Clean Giveaway

I've teased you long enough; the giveaway is here!!

It's hard to believe it's been over a year since I joined the blogging world.  I still remember my first comment from Amy.  (If you don't follow Amy, you should. She's crazy talented and inspirational.  I also happen to know her IRL so you can believe me when I say she's awesome.)  This past year has been one of major change for us, that included some valleys, but mostly a year of amazing growth for our whole family.  Thank you for sharing in our journey and I hope you'll stick around to see how God continues to work in our lives.  

To commemorate our blogiversary (and writing more than 100 posts), I'm giving away an amazing product to one of you.

Since we all love to clean...

What? you don't love cleaning? 

That's ok, you can still enter to win.  In fact, you may even find you enjoy it with this product!

A little history:

When Skylar was one month old (to the day), she had an allergic reaction to the chemicals in dryer sheets and actually stopped breathing.  Scariest moment of my life.  After that I started researching all the chemicals in the house and I was shocked by what I found.  Majority of popular cleaners contain carcinogens.  Also, one of the most caustic of all cleaners is laundry soap! If a child drinks laundry detergent, he/she will have 3rd degree burns within a matter of minutes.  I grimace to think that I used CLR with my kids in the house! (the fumes alone from that one can cause respiratory damage).  So we started using "greener" products and homemade concoctions.  The green products were expensive, but worth it.  The homemade concoctions just didn't work all that well.  (Peroxide just couldn't remove all the hard water stains on my shower doors).

Just recently I was introduced to a company called Melaleuca that is non-toxic, and affordable!

Rest assured I was skeptical because I thought it was just another Amway type of thing.  Now that I have used their products for 4 months, I can honestly say it's not.  I have been amazed by all of their products and I love that I can have the girls "help" me clean without worrying about the chemicals in the cleaners. I'm not interested in making it a "business" and getting folks to sign up.  I am, however, interested in showing folks a good alternative.

So- I decided to give away one of my favorite cleaners.  It's called "Tub n Tile".  It cleans our bathrooms like nothing I have ever used! The main ingredient is Citric acid so it smells like oranges. :) One person will get the Tub n Tile cleaner and spray bottle.  It's concentrated (just add water) so you are actually getting SIX bottles of cleaner!

How to enter-each item gets one entry:
1. Leave a comment telling me the thing you most dislike cleaning.
2. Follow our blog (or let me know you already do!).
3. Tweet about the giveaway.

Be sure to leave a comment for each one that you do.
Good luck!
I will choose a winner at random on Monday, May 3rd.

I am not being compensated by Melaleuca for this review and giveaway.

out of the mouths of babes

The last few days have been spent tending to a very feverish 2 year old.  She was exposed to hand, foot, mouth disease so I'm pretty much waiting to see if this high fever turns into it.  Praying it doesn't.  I need to grocery shop and clean but she's clingy and wants a lot of mommy's attention so I'm perfecting my snuggling.  But that doesn't mean I can't blog :)

Here are a few fun things heard around our house lately:

Skylar: Mommy, you forgot to get me a straw.
Me: No, I didn't forget. I just haven't got to it yet.  I'm goin as fast as I can sweetheart.
Skylar: (pauses for moment) If you had roller skates on, I bet you could go faster.
(how do you argue with that logic???)

Bailey: (while staring out the sliding glass door) Mommy! Look!
Me: What is it baby?
Bailey: Jesus! He coming!
Me: (a little panicked and running to the door) I don't see anyone out there love.
Bailey: No see Jesus?
Me: No,  I don't see him.
Bailey: (looking outside again)...ooooh, no Jesus.  Jest a waget ("wagon" in Bailey-speak).

At the breakfast table:
Skylar: I had a bad dream last night and I was scared.
Me: Oh, I'm sorry.  But remember that we don't have to be afraid because God is always with us and He takes away all our fears.
Reagan: Yah Skylar.  Fear is sin.  You just need to pray and it will go away.
(Seriously...from the mouth of a 6 year old.)

While Bailey was resting on the couch next to me, I turned on Dancing with the Stars.  She perked up and said "Dancing uh Stars!" and then proceeded to dance around in front of the television while taking her clothes off.  Uh oh!

I hope your week is going well.

I heart this smiling face

This week's challenge over at "I heart Faces" is simply "smiles."  My girls offer lots of smiles, but this one is my recent favorites, so i had to share.  I posted one similar to it on here last weekend, but this is the picture I took right after.  This is her "ok I'll smile for the camera, but this is as good as my smile is going to get mommy" look.  :D

Head on over to iheartfaces and see other "smiling faces"