Planting strawberries.

I've been wanting a raised strawberry planter for awhile. My sister-in-law Nichole has one and I love that her kids are able to go out side and pick them whenever they are in season. I asked Charlie if he could make me one and off to Home-Depot we went! We used cedar fencing since it was cheaper than regular cedar boards and It turned out beautifully!! I'm so in-love with it! 

We each had a piece of Trader Joe's chocolate which explains the chocolate mouth. 

Here are our beautiful strawberry plants!

She's the very best helper

Charlie came up with this brilliant idea:

He took a copper pipe and nailed small holes into it so it would mist water onto the plants.How cool is that?!? He even got me this snazzy timer so I can set it for the same time every day and it'll water the plants for me. 2016 can be pretty awesome.

Here are some cell phone pictures we took:

Emily snapped this photo of me. 30 weeks today!!

Shes so sweet<3

God gives the growth.

A couple weeks ago I left my bible study feeling defeated. When it came my turn to read what I had on my verses I mumbled my words and felt like I didn't do a very good job explaining. I always want to be someone who is encouraging and I felt like I wasn't. The rest of the bible study I couldn't concentrate and to be honest, I was just letting it get to me. I came home telling Charlie that I felt like I didn't do a very good job and he reassured me that I did and not to worry about it. I decided to give it my all at the next one and was studying like crazy. I started getting all worked up about it (someone didn't listen to their husband). I couldn't figure out what God wanted to me to say and I didn't want to copy notes from someone. I remember telling Charlie that I wanted God to give me what needed to be said, and what would be the most encouraging. He seemed to do it for other people, why couldn't He do it for me I thought? 

Little did I know that he had already done that for me and I had no idea until that night. 

We started the bible study and Trina went first. She said something like this: 

"Last week Amber said something and I've been thinking about it all week." 

"Saaaaaaaay, what?!? The week I came home defeated and felt like I wasn't encouraging? THAT week?" I thought. Trina went on to say that she was encouraged by what I had said.

 I wanted to cry. How could I think that God wouldn't use my mumbling along, feeling defeated, to somehow encourage someone? God does that sort of thing. I remember saying that we can't do anything on our own and God gets all the glory. That without Him, we are nothing. She was really encouraged by that. 

I'm reminded by this verse in 1 Corinthians 3:7:

"So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but 

only God who gives the growth."

God gives the growth. He can use me feeling defeated and what felt like a poor explanation to accomplish something that will help some one. God uses the people around us to help encourage us. He put it on Trina's heart to let me know that I was encouraging (Which was so amazing that it still makes me want to cry. Blaming you pregnancy hormones ;-)) Maybe it was for me to just learn to trust Him with my bible studies and to realize that it's not me, it's Him working through me, even in my mumbling. That He can use me any way that He sees fit. How wonderful is that?

"But Moses said to the LORD, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue."Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?  Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”  Exodus 4:10-12

A typical morning in the Sullivan house hold.

So I thought I'd do a blog post on what my mornings look like. I tried to snap a picture every hour or so. 

8am- Breakfast time. We had homemade sour dough toast with farm fresh eggs and non-gmo yogurt with chia seeds (I grew the chia seeds in my garden. No big deal). No, that's not a box of Mini Wheats in the background.......sssshhhhhhh. Ok, the kids had mini wheats and Tucker and I had baked oatmeal with honey yogurt. 

8:20ish- Tucker and I took a shower while the other kids played. Don't mind the huge laundry mess in the back ground. The other two hopped in the shower and every one was dressed and clean. VICTORY!! 

9am ish- The kids played in their room while I cleaned up the kitchen mess. 

Well, trashed their room. 

Jakey boy helping momma vacuum.

Emily pushing Tucker on the bed so the vacuum doesn't get him. 

Vacuuming her room like a big girl while Jake tries to kill his self on the doll house.

10 am-- I found a toddler Bible study online. The kids kept on repeating "The Lord is my Shepherd, I like nothing" Thank you Kentucky accent for making the word "lack" sound like "like". Close enough! haha!

Coloring a Shepherd and sheep! 

Tucker decided to take this opportunity to go into the bath room and cause chaos. AKA--Eating toothpaste, unrolling the toilet paper, getting in the shower and splashing, etc.  This is him being dragged out and then told "No, bathroom" He can't like it.

While the kids were coloring I decided to tackle this huge load of laundry. I can't like this.

Tucker screaming once again because his leg wouldn't fit the way he wanted it to fit in his booster. Life is rough.

While I was folding laundry they decided that coloring was boring so why not draw on each others faces instead. Good times.

This kid though haha. 

10:30ish. Starting Ems lessons. I asked her if she could take a picture of us. She somehow figured out how to edit pictures while taking them. These 2012 kids. I tell ya! (Did you notice Tuckers awesome multi-tasking abilities?)

I really love these Pathway Reader books!

Reading.

Jake snapped this picture of Tucker. He's adorable. His pants are wet because he decided to dump a whole glass of water on his self between the hours of 9am-10am. 

Emily doing her Math book. 

11:30ish-- Lunch time and we're making pizza!

The kids loved it. Who doesn't like pizza? My son is pant-less most of the day because we are potty training. 

The kids ate lunch and I sent them outside to play before naps. Jake asked Emily to "under dog" him on that green swing. That went about as well as you would imagine. I heard screaming and ran outside to see Emily underneath it with her face down in the mud. I told them no more "under-doggies".

Nap time! Emily is so excited about taking a nap as you can tell. 

My current view. Coffee and a computer.

Our story: Part 1.

Charlie and I first "talked" when I was 13 and he was 16. He lived in Oregon and I lived all the way across the country in Kentucky. We "met" on the internet. Craziness, I know. We talked for about three months and his parents told him that he needed to stop talking to me because he shouldn't be talking to some random 13 year old girl on the internet (totally understand that now! lol) . We were both really sad when it happened and I wasn't a christian at the time, so I would get on yahoo messenger and tell him he should talk to me. He would ignore me. Y'all did well Muth and Dad. He obeyed!  

                                                   


A few years went by and I was in my Senior year of high school and I found him on myspace. To be honest, I forgot about him until I saw his name on another persons friends list. I found out later that he didn't forget about me. He would tell people about me and he had been praying for me all these years. Be ready to be swooned ladies!! We were on a walk with the kids a few weeks ago. He looked over at me and said " You know I loved you when I was 16 and I didn't know why. Then we started dating and I figured out all the reasons why I loved you." Swoooooooon. After five years he still gets to me. Enough of that before all you ladies get too jealous haha!

 AnyHOO, I sent him a friend request and he sent me a message saying "Holy cow, Amber Goble, is that really you?" and that started the many weeks of late night chatting on yahoo messenger, long phone calls (one that even sent me to the hospital because I was talking to him so late and getting up so early for school that I got a bad migraine and thought I was dying), and laughing until our cheeks hurt. He was the one and I new it on day three. Now, I'm an optimist. Anyone that knows me would know that. I have all the hope in the world that things will work out. Charlie is a pessimist and he would say he is a pessimist/realist. With that in mind, he thought it would never work out since he was all the way across the country in Ft. Irwin, CA where he was stationed.  I, on the other hand, knew we would get together some how. We were a perfect match. I would tell him that "God would work it all out!". He was getting out of the military at the time and moving back to Oregon so he wanted to keep it a "friends only" thing.  We both new we liked each other........ A LOT. But we really kept it in the "friend zone". 

 My days were spent of me going to school, hurrying home as fast as I could after school so I could hop on yahoo messenger to see if he was online. My whole world pretty much revolved around our friendship. He was so much fun to talk to and we both had the same since of humor. It was so amazing. He went home during Christmas and decided that he wanted to stay in the military. He wanted to reenlist for Fort Campbell, KY. (All the praise hands!!) I was excited. Seeeeeee, my optimism actually worked out for once. He says it had nothing to do with me and that he just really wanted to stay in a few more years since there wasn't any job opportunities in Oregon at the time. Uhhh-huh. I still don't believe that one, buddy. Haha! He called me on Feb 11th and said he would be coming out to Ft. Campbell in June.  I graduated in May and the days couldn't have gone slower until June. He was on his way to see me and he would be here with me in 3 days. 

June 7th was finally here. One of the best days of my life. He called and said he was about 10 minutes away. I had changed my outfit at least a dozen times and decided on some ripped jeans and an orange t-shirt. Casual, but cute. My phone rang and my friend Candice said "Girlfriend, I JUST PASSED CHARLIE ON YOUR ROAD!!" I was freaking out. He would be here in about 2.5 seconds. I got off the phone with her and waited outside with my family. My grandma who watches too much dateline was convinced charlie was going to be some middle aged creeper who was going to kidnap me. I don't blame her because I would have thought the same thing  if it was my Granddaughter.  I heard a loud screech and I realized it was his brakes. I should have told him that it was easy to miss his turn off. Ooops! I saw his truck emerge around the corner and my heart was about to jump out of my chest. He pulled in and got out of his truck and he was (still is!!) the most handsome guy I had ever seen in my life. 

Sleepy time tea. A parents worst nightmare.

Don't let that adorable sleeping bear fool ya.

 Let me start this story off by saying that I didn't sleep well for two nights AND I was exhausted. My kids normally sleep really good for the most part but I wanted to make sure that they got a good sleep so Sleepy Time Tea it was. 

I was over at my MIL's house and I decided to give the kids some Sleepy Time Tea (mistake number one). I had this tea called Throat Coat that I was drinking (mistake number two) because I was sick and had a cold. Please take my advice. Don't ever drink that. I'm not even kidding. The description on the back said "slimy, but in a good way" What do you even know of that is slimy but in a good way?!? For realz. The kids drank all of their tea and I headed home. 

I helped the kids get ready for bed and I tucked them all in. We said our prayers and I kissed them goodnight. I stayed up for a little bit and went to bed at 10. The Pee Fest started around 11pm. 

Let me start off with Tuck.  I heard him crying so I went in to check on him. I brought him to bed with me and laid him down beside me and then I felt the wetness. The dreaded wetness that no exhausted parent wants to feel at night. He had completely soaked him self in pee. So I had to use my ninja skills to sneak into the kids room and grab a diaper and wipes. I got a change of clothes for him, got him dressed and after a few snuggles and kisses, back in the bed he went. He decided to scream off and on most of the night. 


                                     

It is now 2am and I hear Emily say "Mommy, I NEED TO MAKE POOKIES" I'm tired y'all. I didnt even want to move at this point so I said from my room "Go make pookies, Emily" I heard her get out of bed and walk into the kitchen where she stopped. Now, as a parent you always hope that you can lay in bed while the kid happily goes to the bathroom, turns on the light, does their business and peacefully goes back into the bed. Yeah, that doesn't happen over here. We are lucky to have a creepy shadow tree monster that lives outside our bathroom window that the kids are deathly afraid of.  Of course his creepy tree arm shadow only comes out at night. He blows by the window in just the right way. I'd be creeped out too if I was their age, so I knew it was coming. "Mommy, the shadow of the tree in the window is scary. Can you turn on the light?" So I get out of bed and turn on the bathroom light and explain to her that the shadow off the tree in the window is not something to be afraid of. I tuck her back into bed.

I went over to check on Jake. I put my hand on his back and I felt the dreaded wetness AGAIN. Charlie and I were talking about parenthood and he said if he could describe one word that summed up parenthood it would be bodily fluids. He couldn't be more right at this point. 

   
Jake had soaked his clothes. All the way up the front and all the way down the back. His bed, pillow, every thing. Urine was every where. At that point I just wanted to cry. I was feeling so overwhelmed and tired. How much pee can a mom take?!? Just at the moment God gave me just what I needed to hear, right when I needed it most. Emily looked over and said "Mommy, I love you" Thank you Lord!! I got Jake a new diaper and changed his bed. I put him back in his bed and he went to sleep. 

I've learned a few life lessons from this:

(A) God will give you just what you need, just when you need it most. Something as simple as your daughter saying "Mommy, I love you" can mean so much when your elbow deep in pee. I'm telling ya!

(B)Never, ever, ever, give a child Sleepy Time Tea 30 mins before they go to bed. Hello, the fullest of full bladders. 

(C) Never believe in your plans when they involve trying to get your kids to sleep at night.

Shopping when "you got kids"

 Ok, so I normally go to three different stores on a regular shopping trip. I'll go to more stores if I feel brave and I'm ok with getting screamed at by a 14 month old. Monday was not that day because I got kids and I know how it goes. I only say this because: (a) Charlie is gone (b) Because dragging three kids and my pregnant self through three different stores, while missing naps just ain't worth it some days.  Some days I'm all like "Yeaaaah, I'm doing thangs!!" Then you get to the last store of the day and some kid decides to scream bloody murder, while another one decides to be brave and touch something they shouldn't (I'm talking about you Jakey boy!! Hes been doing better), while another one yells "I HAVE TO MAKE POOKIES!!" when you're about half-way through the store and have a bajillion more isles to go down. 

So Miriam, my awesome SIL, came over on Monday for lunch and to hang out. I told her that I needed to go to Winco after the kids naps. I was still hanging out in my yoga pants and tee shirt, so I was looking like a hot mess. Seriously though, yoga pants are ahhh-mazing. They are like every pregnant woman's dream come true. Heck, every non-pregnant girls dream come true. Anyhoo, I was telling her that I didn't really feel like going and that I was on a time crunch. I told my other SIL that I was going to meet her for dinner at 6. At this point it was already 2:30ish. I still needed to get the kids dressed and make myself look presentable. To be honest, I did not want to change out of my yoga pants. But I prevailed and put on leggings and a tunic shirt thingy instead. Still as comfortable. I decided to just do it and I told Miriam I would send her updates as it went. It looked something like this:

There ya have it! We only had one meltdown and that was because I ran over Emily's heel with the cart. Ouch! Poor girl!

 I got back around 5 and had all the groceries put away by 5:30. I call that a success.