Apartment Fever

Hey.

It's been awhile, huh?

The Christmas season has come and gone, along with the beginning of a new year.  Both are such great times of reflection, but I was keeping pretty busy.  I do have, like, a bazillion photos of our break that you're probably going to have to suffer through for the next several letters.  So, be forewarned.

Like this one where Evelyn MASTERED Katie's frown.  Oh my word.  Aunt Katie was trying to show her how to take a good selfie, I guess.

So here we are, two weeks into 2016.  The babe and I are hibernating in our coziest of cozies on this brisk, sub-zero day and not feeling the cabin fever one bit.  Except that we aaaaaare.  What we would give for just twenty more degrees of warmth so that we could at least venture to Target or HyVee.

At least I can say that Evelyn has put herself to sleep for two naps today without making one peep.  A few days of letting her cry it out for naps and bedtime, and I think/hope/pray that we've gotten to where she will self soothe.

On the up side of this being stuck inside- I've gotten to dig into my colored pencils to try out some new things, so that's fun.  Hoping to stretch myself and get the creative juices flowing a bit more this year.

Speaking of hopes for the year, I've created a list of goals for 2016.  Not resolutions per se, but a few things to keep me on track and challenge me to get outside of my comfort zone.  I'm thinking that my word for the year might need to be something along the lines of productive.  That's not the most exciting word choice though, so I'm going to think on it a little longer.

Last year's word was peace, and I feel like I was able to hold onto that pretty well.  I mean, we had some fairly huge changes in our life, and I never felt too overwhelmed.  (Minus a few weeks of thinking I was going to die from nursing baby girl.)  To make the understatement of the year, it was a good year.

Well, I have about four loads of laundry that I'd like to get going while Bozzie is sleeping, so I'm going to wrap up with a good ole photo dump!

[how she felt about rice cereal]

[her reaction to Jered's arrival in Canton]

[Christmas Eve story time with Dad and Uncle Chadd]

[Dad in his matching family Christmas PJs]

[annual Christmas morning shot]

[Squash and carrots are much preferred!]

Whew!  And those were just some of my favorites from the first part of break.  You'll just have to wait until next time for the rest of my faves!  Muahaha.

Ta-ta!

Aim

Giving Thanks

Hey.

I'm sitting in bed next to a post-shots, sleeping baby and husband.  She is such a trooper.  She only cried for about five minutes, and she recovered without even eating.  She just took her silky pillowcase and snuggled Mom and Dad and was fine.  She's such a big girl.

As I sit here on this gloomy Friday afternoon I'm thinking I can't believe it's this early in the afternoon because it looks like the day is almost over.

But I'm also thinking about how thankful I am, and how I meant to push out a reflective Thanksgiving letter over "break."  (Who am I kidding- what break?  I'm retired.)

However, even stay-at-home-moms need breaks, right?  And what a lovely one we had.  It's refreshing to go from Mom, woman of the house (gosh, that sounds weird) to Aim, oldest kid of the Eric Rude household.  To have my mom there to worry about meals, offering to put the baby to sleep for me, changing every Illinois diaper.  (I realized this weekend she pronounces it "El-inois.")  Where Dad picks up your favorite ice cream so we can have milkshakes every night.

It's so wonderful to have someone ask what kind of eggs I want for breakfast instead of heading to the same box of cereal again.  Or to have someone play with Evie so she doesn't get bored and fussy while I workout and shower.  To actually take a nap while Grandpa Herb and Grandma Beth watch the little girl for me.  To watch Evelyn play and interact more with all of her extended family and get loved on so well.

Thanksgiving "break" is one of my favorite times because it's such a wonderful time to reflect and to welcome in the rest of the holiday season.

We have so much to be thankful for this year! It is so wild to think about how last year at this time (well-Thanksgiving time) we were telling everyone that little J was on the way, and now we have a busy, babbling Boz that has stolen our hearts.  Our sweet girl is happy and healthy and so, so loved.  We've received such wonderful help and encouragement in the last six months.  I will be forever grateful that my mom and Jered's mom were both able to spend about a week with us right after Evelyn was born.  It was such a blessing to have the extra hands and wisdom there during those first days with a new baby.  And-oh my goodness- the fact that I am able to stay home!  I can't imagine life any other way right now.  The fact that Jered got into Nurse Practitioner school is great too, and not just because it allowed for me to stay home with our girl.

And there is so much more, but to avoid writing a small book, let us move on toward the Christmas season!

It's filled up with my favorite things.  With warm, hearty food, and spiced drinks, and staying cozy throughout the day, and crackling fires, and family we haven't seen in months, and laughter, and games, and stories, and real hugs, and lazy mornings spent talking over flavored coffee, and Christmas music streaming through the house, and twinkly lights, and favorite ornaments (even if Katie took them for her tree- I saw you Miss Bianca and Bernard!), and finding the perfect gift wrap, and old Christmas Golden Books, and popcorn and movies, and alllll of it.

I had planned to weave the week's photos in nicely with what I had to say, but you know how that ends.  So here they are, plopped at the end.

  

  

I'm off to end the growling stomach I have going on right now.  I'm hoping to be back soon with some more Christmas and motherhood reflections.  

If I'm successful, I'll talk to you then.

Aim

Thoughts on Love

Hey.

Guess what.  Gueeesss whaaaaat.

I lost my list of topics.  I remember one of them.  That's it.  Just one.

Maybe I'll remember the rest later.

Back before Evelyn was here, back when she was just J, I decided to pray for some specific personality traits for her.  My main prayer for her was that she would have a heart for other people.  That she would show mercy and compassion and love to those who need it.

 

I prayed that it might be such a strength in her, that she would teach Jered and me how to love others better.  That she would teach us about loving like Jesus.

[That face!]

When I think about that prayer now, it looks like I was trying to take the easy way out.  Apparently God thought so too.  What did I think?  That I could just wait a few years until Evelyn shows me how to love better?  That I could just go on living the same until then?  That God has ever been content with delayed obedience?

A few weeks ago at church I heard this, "We must become immediately obedient in saying yes to the direction of the Holy Spirit, rather than offering excuses."

It still took a few weeks for this whole concept to come together in my mind.

Just another example of Aimee being extremely thick from time to time.

 

So much of my reading lately seems to have been screaming at me about the importance of loving others that I feel maybe God is telling me I'm not off the hook with this concept.  It is my/our job, after all, to train up our child in the way she should go.

In his book You and Me Forever, Francis Chan says:

"There's an old expression: most of what your kids learn from you will be caught, not taught.  While it's not in the Bible, we all know there is a lot of truth in that statement.  We can all think of habits, expressions, and attitudes that we picked up from our parents- for better or worse.  They didn't sit us down and lecture us on these things, but we ended up copying them (many times even when we tried hard not to!)."

 

He also says that they will notice the gap between our supposed beliefs and actions.  If our love, our actions, our sacrifices don't match up with what we say we believe, why would they decide to join the hypocrisy of the church?

 

Ouch!  And He still keeps pounding this lesson into my mind.

Some of the other sermon notes I took over the last few weeks are:

"Giving like Jesus is not about money- that's about obedience.  Giving like Jesus is giving of ourselves, our time."

"What's broken in my life?  What about my life is causing God's heart to break?"

"Our tendency to isolate is selfish and self-kingdom building."

"We are supposed to spread the goodness of His image."

 

I don't know what exactly this is going to look like in my life yet, but I know a change is needed.  Whether it's learning to be more selfless in serving my husband, stopping when I see the "hungry-anything helps" signs, being more intentional, or finding some other way to serve, I want to model genuine love for Evelyn. 

Even though it's not my own strength, I've been lucky enough to have parents who have shown me what this looks like.  I won't share examples because they would be completely uncomfortable with me bringing them to light.

She is already watching us.  She sees what we focus on.  She notices the phones in our hands.  Whether she recognizes them yet or not, she is hearing our words and how we speak them.  It's only a matter of time before she starts mirroring our actions.

As, what I would term, a raging introvert, this whole idea can tend to make me uneasy.  However, God has given us different strengths, and I think that allows for us to show love in different ways.  So my goal is to start brainstorming and finding ways that introverted little me can act on.

All of these thoughts started when I read 7.  Molly was right.  It wrecked my life... in the best way.  It showed me so many practical ways to show love.  If you still haven't taken my word for it, go get the book.  Seriously- here's the link to Amazon.

Well, I think that was the gist of all my thoughts.  Since I lost my notes, I guess we'll never know.  Hopefully another of my "planned" topics will resurface in my mind soon. Ha.

'Til next time.

Aim