Challenge Day 3

Well to start I will recap how Thursday went. My husband was out of town for work last night. Therefore, I could not really greet him at the door with a hug. Instead I sent him text messages and facebook messages letting him know how much I missed him. Hopefully it worked...Hard to tell just over the phone.

So onto today's challenge:
Lesson #3 - Tonight make his favorite meal or dessert. (Or both!) Proverbs 31:15 says, "She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls".
You are making deposits into your marriage. During this two week period be prepared for your husband to do something unloving. You have greeted him, hugged him, & made his favorite meal, but later he yells at you for moving his keys. Ignore it. Don't throw your hands up saying, "Respecting you doesn't work. You are as unloving as ever." You are fasting from complaining for two weeks. Lower your expectations. You can't expect him to change in every area of his life because you did three nice things. Do this for God & not for your husband. God commands you to do this.

I invite you to take this one step further. As I sit here & type this I realize that I am guilty of something that I could do a little better. I am sitting in sweatpants, a tee shirt, no makeup, & messy hair. We would never have been seen this when we were dating. Thank God our husbands still think that we are beautiful when we are a mess. However, from time to time we should put a little extra effort into looking our best for him. I am going to be doing this challenge & all of the others along with you because I need to work on my marriage at the same time. I need to continue to strive to be the very best wife that I can be. I invite you to not only make his favorite meal or dessert but to also take a shower, put on a little makeup, set the table nice, & show him that you have gone out of your way to make him feel special.

As for today it has been very challenging to me. I woke up and did not feel real well, sore throat, sneezing, all that good stuff. Then on top of that we have had some winter weather here in Arkansas. Normally on Fridays I am out of school and will take Jayci to preschool and come home do schoolwork and clean up. Well today was a different story. Schools were closed so that meant Jayci was home with me. Which was wonderful, however; not feeling well and it being icy outside made me just want to stay in my pajamas all day. Honestly, I did get out of my pajamas but only to put on some yoga pants and a semi-cute t-shirt. I know I know...I should have gotten dressed but anyway....I did make dinner. I made a very good chicken spaghetti. Not like normal chicken spaghetti but like breaded chicken breast, a marinara sauce, and bow-tie pasta. Trust me it is yummy! My husband loves it and we hadn't had it in a while so I decided to make it. Well, here comes another challenge. 1) Roads are icy 2) we didn't have all the stuff to make the for mentioned chicken spaghetti. Well I was not going to get myself and our daughter out on the dangerous roads so I called my husband and asked him to pick up just a few items that we needed.

All in all I hope that he enjoyed the dinner. I really feel like he did but it's hard to tell when I am feeling like poo and just want to be taken care of. Oh I did do the dishes that were in the sink. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal but I absolutely LOATH doing dishes. We don't have a dishwasher and I really just hate it so my husband does them 99% of the time.

I will say that we could have gotten on the "Cycle" several times tonight. Jay was tired from being out of town and not sleeping well last night; I was tired and not feeling well. Those two things usually just don't mix. However, I really practiced just speaking in a nice calm voice and not letting little things get to me. I am praying that God keeps leading me in a new way. I want to do this challenge in a Godly way not just a "good wife/human" way.

Day 2 of 14

OK so I have already posted how my challenge went yesterday. It felt great to just connect a little differently. Even last night, as we were crawling into bed, Jay told me how much he enjoyed me getting up and greeting him when he got home.

Challenge Day 2:
Lesson #2 - Greet your husband & give him a hug. Let him know again that you missed him or were thinking about him today. Again, this is secondary to what you are really feeling. Just do it. If he says something like, "Wow, two days in a row. Do you want money or something"? Ignore it. He is saying this to you because he is noticing your actions & they feel good to him. What may feel like sarcasm to you is playful bantering to him. After you hug him, leave the room. Don't allow for a conversation about your new behavior. This isn't a game, we are just trying to avoid getting into a discussion of unresolved issues that you are not equipped to handle just yet.

OK well this challenge may be a little harder seeing as my husband is out of town for work. I will try to think of something though to make him feel special and that I appreciate him and all of his hard work.

Also, if you are just reading my blog please click on the Women's Ministry button on the left side of the screen to find out what challenge I am exactly talking about. I hope you join in. I think it is going to be a really good kind of challenge overall!

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!