14 Day "Love & Respect" Challenge

I have started following this Women's Marriage Ministry Blog. I am really really enjoying reading it. It just gives me a way to read how another woman struggles in her marriage, life, kids, and her daily walk with God.

I have recently blogged about mine and my husband's relationship and how we have struggled through these last few years of Nursing School. If I'm really being honest we have been married 4 years and have had struggles through out. I feel like we are really doing a lot better in our communication skills and relationship overall than we ever did in the beginning of out marriage. However, there is just still something missing. I know a lot of it is me. I know I need to change in some of my ways. My husband is fabulous, yes of course I could point out several faults, but I'm not going to do that. This challenge is about me and my relationship with my husband and working my hardest to be a Godly Wife. So here is the challenge:

Lesson #1 - Tonight or tomorrow when your spouse comes home, greet them at the door. Don't yell from another room. Physically meet them at the door. Let them know that you missed them today. (even if you didn't) I have started doing this with Adam & he absolutely loves it. Honestly, so do I. I feel much more special when I feel that everyone is happy to see me. If this is not possible to do it this way due to your schedules, then be sure to make him feel like you missed him & you are happy to see him when you are face to face.

I accomplished this task today. My husband was surprised needless to say. His exact quote was, "What was that for?" My response, "Just because I love you." When I first read the challenge for today I was like ugh I really do not want to do that. Not because I don't love my husband but because I felt kind of silly. After it was done I felt really good. It made me feel really connected to him. I know he enjoys giving me a kiss and telling me hello when he gets home but it is just not that important to me. This made me really tap into something that is important to him. In the end I didn't feel silly at all. In fact, I felt so happy to know that I was doing something that would show him how much I appreciate him.

Now just to keep going with this and add other tasks on top of it!

Happy Birthday Jayci

Jayci,

As your 4th birthday comes to an end I sit thinking about all the wonderful things you bring to my life. You bring Joy, Love, Smiles, Purity, and so many other emotions I will never be able to describe. It is funny how many emotions I have had today. I am feeling so happy and blessed that God choose your daddy and me to be your parents. I am also feeling so sad that you are already 4-years-old. Which you have reminded us of several times today!

So what are you up to as you turn 4....

You love playing dress-up and palace. You make your daddy come and play with you as soon as he gets home every day. You enjoy turning on music or sometimes Daddy just sings to you and you guys dance. You like to help in anyway you can; as long as it is fun for you of course. You like to help do dishes and cook dinner. You are always doing or saying something to make your Daddy and I laugh. In fact the other day you told me your friends and teachers were very impressed that you could snap your fingers. You also told me it is impressive for you to be able to do that. Who knew you even knew the word impress?!? Oh one of my favorite thing that you are doing is trying to speak Spanish. I'm not sure that you get the concept that it is a complete different language but you like to say, "Gracious" and try to count to 10. You really do a good job! You are also learning you letters and the sounds that they make. You can write your name! Also I wrote the word "Mommy" the other day and your recognized what it said! I was so excited!!! We are working on teaching you how to read so maybe by your next birthday you will be reading!

Jayci I cannot believe you are growing up sooo fast. It feels like just yesterday I was a confused, scared, excited, new mommy to a precious baby girl. Now I am still all of those things it is just to a 4-year-old big Girl!

I love you, Jayci Leigh Bradley! I am so blessed to be your Mommy.

Love, Mommy

Growing up

This sweet precious little baby girl will be 4 years old next Monday. I can hardly believe it. As I type she is sitting in the floor playing with her Grammie. She is just getting so big. Today we had a conversation about her learning to snap her fingers. It went a little something like this:

Me: Jayci did you show your friends and teacher that you can snap your fingers?

Jayci: OH yeah I did. They were very impressed!

Me: (In shock she just said impressed). Yeah they were. It is very impressive that I can do that.

I just laughed and laughed. She just says some of the funniest things. I really want to get better about "writing" them down.

Also this week we have started a book called "Teach your child how to read in 100 Easy Lessons." I don't know about easy but it sure is working my patience! We actually started a couple of weeks ago and did it for two days. After those two days I decided to put it up for a little bit and start fresh. Today went really well! I am trying to keep things in perspective. Little things are not worth fighting over. If it takes us a little longer to get it done or if we just don't do it one night I'm not going to sweat it. It is just not productive for me to get mad and end up so frustrated at her or her in tears.

My last post was about how hard school is for Jay's and my relationship. Well, needless to say school is also hard on Jayci's and I relationship. I am stressed and am bad about taking things out on my family. I know horrible. However, I am really trying to stop doing this. I know last semester of school is kind of a late start but I guess it is better than never.

Anyway, back to my sweet baby girl. I love her so much and she is growing up so fast! Next week I will post a longer post about her and her birthday.

Priorities and Prayer Request

This is officially my last semester of school. Can you repeat after me? YIPPEE!!! Not only am I so excited about being finished I'm pretty sure my husband is possibly more excited. School is so hard on us. It's hard on our communication abilities, it's hard on ability to spend time together, plain and simple it is just hard overall on our marriage. Personally I am tired! Tired of school, tired of trying to balance life outside of school, you know the little thing called my family. I am just exhausted. But with only 123 days to go I have to find a way to muster up the energy and will-power to get through all of it.

All that being said I know there is only one way I am going to make it through this semester. That would be by leaning on God. At house church, which is like Small group, we talked about giving our whole self/life to God and what that would look like. I am still pretty unsure exactly what that looks like just because that is such a hard concept to me. But for now I feel like it looks like being a better wife to my wonderful husband. It means to stop putting him on the back burner and pay attention to his needs. He is so amazing to me and I fall very short of showing him how much I appreciate him.

I know this post may not make since to many people or it may. I don't really know. It is more a way for me to type out how I am feeling right now. It is also a way for me to hold myself accountable. I want to be a wonderful wife, mother, student. Unfortunately my priorities have been a little bit backwards. So from now on I want to lean on God a lot more, be a better wife, and really set my priorities correctly.

Oh and one last thing...We have some friends that have just learned that their brother-in-law, Kyle, has cancer. They are not sure what kind or even where all it is. They do know that it is in more than one body system. The doctors plan on doing a biopsy later on this week to find out more specifics. Anyway, Kyle is 31-year-old husband and dad to 3 children. Please pray for him and his family during this very hard time.

Dear Santa

Today is the first day in a while that I have had absolutely nothing to do! OK well I could be doing laundry, dishes, or studying for the test I have on Saturday but instead I kept Jayci at home. We have totally enjoyed ourselves too. We have washed some dishes but mainly we have just stayed in our pajamas and watched cartoons! Can you say Fabulous?!?

One very important thing we did today though was write Jayci's letter to Santa. Just FYI I am a bit controlling so this was very hard for me. I scanned it and thought I would share.

I have to admit I helped her some. I drew dotted lines for her to trace and write her letters. However, they are learning letters at school so she can write most of those. The top people looking things are dolls. There is a Daddy, Mommy, Baby (with one eye), brother, and another baby. The little half circle things sticking out from the side of their head are ears! Then below that is a Dollhouse and a fountain. She drew both of those by herself. Then she signed her name. I'm not really sure why she has started writing her "J" backwards but it bugs me to no end. She has been writing the letter "J" since this summer and just in the last month it has turned backwards. I'm just trying to be patient about it.

OK well I hope everyone has a great rest of the day and week! After Saturday I will be completely done with this semester. Woo-Hoo! Only 1 more semester left!

Petite Jean

Today Jay, Jayci, and I loaded up in the car and went on a little adventure. At first this adventure was just going to be for Jay and I. However, since Jay has been out of town a lot lately and I have been super busy with school we decided to take Jayci along with us. Our adventure consisted of going to Petite Jean State Park. Which ordinarily for Jay and I would not be an adventure but this was the first time we had ever taken Jayci with us. And let me just tell you she was FABULOUS!!! We hiked around for 3 - 3 1/2 hours and she was so good. Here is a map of the park and trails.

Jay & Jayci when we first got there!

Jayci & Me

First we went down Bear Cave Trail. This trail had lots of really big rocks. In fact we decided to climb up one and eat our lunch. We arrived at Petite Jean at about 11:30 so it was a good time and a great location to eat lunch.

Jayci & Jay

Can you tell she loves her daddy?!?

Doesn't this look like a great spot to eat lunch? It was!!!

Nothing like peanut butter sandwich, a carrot and blue skies all around!

After giving our selves plenty of energy with lunch we decided to climb around on some of the smaller rocks.

Jayci & I showing what tuff girls we are!

Jay & Jayci on their really big rock climbing mission! Jayci kept saying, "I am soo Brave."
Of Course there is nothing like getting a little help from Dad on the way down the rocks.

Or A LOT of help!After this trail we headed over to Ceder Creek Falls trail. This trail was considered a moderately hard trail. This trail goes a little further into the woods and makes a big loop. We did not do the big loop. Instead we cut over to the boy scout trail (a moderate to hard trail) and went to see the waterfall overlook.

***Side note: We had planned on going down the trail that leads down to the bottom of the waterfall. However, I thought that it might be a little too hard for Jayci and did not want to attempt it her first time hiking around on a mountain. Well I was wrong because she did excellent and this trail was pretty hard.



So instead of seeing the bottom of the waterfall we just saw the top (I didn't take any pictures). Which was really good enough!

Walking down the trail like such a big girl. There was a pre NO WHINING clause stated and signed at the beginning of the day!

A little jump down!

Stopping to feel the water on the way down. It was pretty chilly.

This is stopping to splash water on our hot faces on the way back. Really hoping the water is clean!

After this trail Jayci started to get a bit tired but we wanted to go to one more place. This really neat cave. It is super huge and is made of rocks. In fact it is called Rock House Cave. This was the last stop of the day!

Tired but still willing to be brave to climb some rocks!

She was super brave on this one and climbed around all by herself. OK Jay was just right outside of the picture. But she felt very brave and proud of her self.

I love fall! Today was the perfect fall day! We had a beautiful time and just loved being a family. Many thanks were given to God as we ventured through His forest today!

Light at the end of a VERY Long Tunnel

Well these could not have come at a better time! They are not really all that good and I really didn't expect them to be but I was so happy to see them. It's like I know that the end is coming. I always saw myself going to college and having a bachelor degree of some sort one day. And that day is coming near! Then GASP they are actually going to allow me to take care of real people, probably kids by choice! Oh man that is just scary but exciting all at the same time. Well I really just wanted to share the pictures with everybody. Only 192 days to go!!!! May 15, 2010 cannot get here any sooner!!!!