June Ramblings

Another month has come and gone. June was a busy month for us…we went on a beach vacation, I worked VBS at our church, we built a garage, celebrated our eight year wedding anniversary, spent about a week being sick, and found out that we are going to have a little niece!

This month I knew that I would be making my monthly video, so I had the camcorder on hand more often to be prepared for cute moments. I have more videos with shorter clips, and I took out the pictures because they were just awkward silence between the videos. Next month I’m going try and be in the videos more often…I’m afraid my kids are only going to remember me as the voice behind the camera! The video is a little rough and you can totally tell an amateur did it, but I don’t care because it exists! Anyway, here is a peek into our June.

The Kids

Many of you have probably noticed that Elijah has a pacifier in his mouth nearly all the time. He is a true paci addict…not only does he have to have one in his mouth, he usually has one for each hand as well. We can’t go anywhere without it, and it seems as if I’m always looking for, losing, and buying more binks (everyone has their own word for it..ours is “bink”). Last week I decided that enough was enough, and he was no longer allowed to have a bink unless he is in his crib. I braced myself for a battle of epic proportions and broke the news to him one morning. I popped it out of his mouth, put it up on  a shelf (that he can’t reach) and told him he could have it back at naptime. He threw a fit…for about 30 seconds. And then he was fine. I couldn’t believe it. He always asks for it when I tell him it’s time for bed, so he hasn’t forgotten about it…and he always gives me a split second of tears when I take it away, but that is it. Whew! I love it when my kids surprise me. Also, I never have to look for binks now…it is always on the shelf. I seriously just gained about 30  minutes a day.

Speaking of my kids surprising me…

Earlier this month I also decided that I was tired of having Levi in our room. He was 7.5 months, and not only was he still in our room, but he was usually in our bed (which I would have NEVER done with Elijah!).  It was crowded, I was uncomfortable, and Adam and I felt like guests in our own room.  If you remember, I had planned on having the boys share a room, but I hadn’t moved Levi out yet because he still wakes to eat 2-3 times a night. I was terrified of him waking Elijah….that just sounded exhausting. But I had enough and decided just to throw them in together and see how it went. I fully expected a rough night of tears.

That is NOT what I got. I got the best nights sleep I have had in months. More than months…in over a year. Levi woke to eat ONCE. He cried, (loudly) and I went in to get him expecting Elijah to be awake, see me, and my night to be over. Except that Elijah wasn’t awake..or maybe he was, I don’t know…but could care less that Levi was crying. I fed Levi, put him back in his crib, and went back to bed…and that was that.

They have been sleeping great all month. They sleep through each other being noisy, Levi only wakes once a night, and they sleep in later when they are together. Why, I have no idea…maybe they look over at the other one still sleeping and decide to just go back to bed. Whatever it is, I’ll take it!

Lastly, in my ramblings last month I said that Levi wasn’t crawling yet, just slithering along on his belly. Not only is he crawling now, but he is standing and cruising up and down the furniture. It happens fast! Elijah seems much more interested in Levi now that he is mobile, unfortunately most of their interactions include fighting…Elijah fighting with Levi to be exact. Looks like I have some training to do!

Cleaning

Sometimes I feel like my purpose in life is to do dishes and laundry. That is all.

Anniversary

This month Adam and I celebrated our eight year wedding anniversary. When we went out on our date we played a little game where we went back and forth sharing our favorite moments over the last eight years. Let me just say… Adam surprised me with some of his answers and I’m sure I surprised him with some of mine. And no, I’m not going to share ;)  Most of the time I feel like time is flying by and we can’t possibly have been married for that long, but during our game I realized just how much we’ve done. In the last eight years we have moved six times (nine depending on what you count as a move), spent three years apart, had two children, ten jobs, made it through two wars, and a slew of other things. But you know what? Through all that we have never faltered. Adam has always been my rock, even when he is on the other side of the world. I have never, not for one second, doubted that he was the man I was meant to be with.  If you’ve read my “about me” section than you know that Adam and I started dating when I was seventeen, was engaged at eighteen, and married at nineteen. When we decided to get married I can honestly say I didn’t feel crazy amounts of support. Oddly enough, the only people I felt supported us 99% were our families (and a handful of other people, I don’t want to pretend that the whole world was against us). I felt like I was constantly being asked if I knew what I was doing, if I was pregnant, or flat out being told that I was making a huge mistake. Not because people thought we were wrong for each other, just because we were so young. That we hadn’t experienced life yet. That we were still figuring out who were. That we would grow apart.

I thought everyone was crazy not to see what I saw.

But they were right…we were young, we hadn’t experience life yet, and we were still figuring out who we were. But we were figuring it out together. We still are. I feel that our marriage is much stronger than it would have been if we would have waited. We grew up together and I wouldn’t trade our hard times for anything.

I look at teenagers now and they seem like babies, so I understand where people were coming from. I certainly wouldn’t give most teenage couples the go ahead to get married. No college? Whatever. Your broke? That’s cool. Crappy jobs? At least you have love.  No one would say that because it would be  terrible advice. But that was us, so I get it. All you haters are forgiven :)

Summer Reading

I finished the Hunger Games series this month. I fully enjoyed it, though at the end I felt like she got tired of writing and just ended what should have been many chapters in just a few pages. Anyone else feel that way? I didn’t hate the ending, I liked the way it turned out and appreciated her reasoning as to why (trying not to ruin anything here). Anyway, I’m not sure what I’m going to read next. I never finished reading The Shack, so I may finish that. Also, a few people have recommended The Ender’s Game series. If anyone is looking for some awesome summer reading then I recommend The Mark Of The Lion series by Francine Rivers, they are my favorite books ever. Actually you can just read anything by Francine Rivers, it’s all fantastic.

Advertising

This month I began offering advertising space on my website. I’ve started recently to get requests for advertising space, so I figured I’d go ahead and dive right in. If you head up to the menu bar you will see an “advertise” tab, and in there you will (hopefully) find all the information you need.    I would love to help promote y’alls blogs, etsy shops and small business and if you have any questions or special requests feel free to shoot me an e-mail. I have gotten two sponsors that I would like to introduce you too..

The first, Cutting Edge Stencils, probably doesn’t need an introduction.

They offer quality stencils that can be used for all sorts of projects…I used their paisley stencil to make my most popular project ever.

The second is Danyelle, owner of the etsy store 3 Stinkies.

She makes beautiful handcrafted mobiles like this one…

Go check out my sponsors and send them some love! It could be you I highlight next month :)

E-mail

I just want to give a big fat apology to anyone who has e-mailed me that I have not e-mailed back. I do my best to keep up with comments and e-mails, but a lot of the time they just get away from me. Many times I will read an e-mail where the answer requires a detailed response so tell myself I’ll come back to it when I get some kid free time. And then it get’s buried in the stack of e-mails and I never get to it. I feel really bad about it. So if you are one of the people I have never responded to…I’m sorry. It’s not personal. Feel free to e-mail me back and title it “What the crap woman?”  and I will make sure to answer you.

I think that’s all my rambling for this month…I’ve leave you with a few (space saving) collages of my favorite pictures of the month.

 

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14 Comments

  1. What a lovely video! The kids are growing so fast. I can’t believe Levi is cruising along already. It is wonderful that you will have these memories to share for a lifetime. Congratulations on your 8 year anniversary. I don’t think age is necessarily the big factor when marrying, it is obvious that you love one another and work together to make it happen. May you have many more happy and healthy years together!

  2. Such a fun video! I wish I had ones like that of mine when they were little. I loved to see Levi nodding off, and then standing on his own by the toy box. Such precious moments!
    And way to go on the whole binks thing. Isn’t it nice when things turn out better than you think they will?
    Also congratulations on your anniversary. It’s lovely to see when two people truly love each other.

    Cheers! J.E.

    P.S. That picture of Elijah hammering the mud is one of the most hilarious things I have ever seen!!

    1. Jan, I think I have to declare you my most dedicated reader! Well, actually, I can’t know that…but I can declare you my most loyal commenter! I love that you take the time to not only read but also respond on all my posts. Thank you for taking the time to do that :)

      That picture of Elijah is great…I have a whole series of them! There are better ones… except that he was stark naked and that was the only picture that didn’t show his toddler goodies. I wish his face was showing, it was solid splatter!

  3. I loved reading your anniversary ramble. My husband and I go t married 6 days after his eighteenth birthday and our experiences were similar. I was surprised by how little support I had from the people around me (especially my father) and was always answering the question “are you pregnant?” (no). The way I explained it to people is this: We both love God and he is the center of our lives. Our goals are the same and our paths to those goals connect. Sure we’re young, and still have a lot of growing to do, but if we grow together we will be shaped to each other. I’m not saying marrying young is the best thing for everyone, but it was the right thing for us. Thanks for sharing your ramblings. I always love to read them.

  4. People are always surprised when I tell them we’ve been married for 38 years because we have 11 grandchildren and I am only 56 years old! Yep, turned 18 in March and married in April. There were many doubters (including my mo-in-law who still isn’t sure :) but we proved them wrong. And really, the first 10 years were the easy ones, even with the little kids, the budget woes and all the struggles. We knew we were in this together.

    The hard part seemed to come later, when the kids were grown, our careers were settled and we had more free time and discretionary spending. The world wants to tell you to break free, you deserve more, there is more ‘out there’. It was a struggle at times but we hadn’t come this far to throw it all away now!

    Stay focused, stay committed, stay in love.

    Some day you will think back and remember some anonymous commenter on your long ago blog pointed these things out to you and remember that she told you “Love is forever! You can do it! THIS is what you were meant to do and who you were mean to be with.”

    I am proud of you and your accomplishments.

    p.s. I am also convicted that I don’t comment more often :)

    ~K!

    1. This is great to hear from someone who has been there. I’ve heard that after the kids are grown and gone couples can feel like strangers if they didn’t take the time to stay connected during the “busy” years…though I’ve never heard that that is harder than the actual busy years. Thanks for the heads up and encouragement and congrats on 38 years of marriage!

  5. Random commenter here, just wanted so say that you put into words everything that I think about getting married young. We got married at 20/21 and we’ve been married 6 years. We’ve grown up together and it’s made us stronger and looking back I know we made the right choice… but I totally look at people that age and think “man you’re young!!”. Happy anniversary :)

  6. I’m with you on the early wedding! My husband and I met at ages 17 and 18, and got married at ages 20 and 21. We always tell people just what you said, “We grew up together by getting married early.”
    Oh, and we look younger than we are too. Though not young enough to be confused for 12-year-olds when we were on our honeymoon. ;)

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