3rd Thursday Blog Hop: Summer Snacks

Here in Florida it has been summer for weeks, already a dozen visits to the pool included.  Being outside makes my kids hungry and I want quick, (and healthy) snacks.  Here are some of my favorites.

• Cheese sticks-  when we buy a block of cheese we cut it up in to sticks or strips and then when we are hungry they are ready in the fridge.  
• Yogurt Fruit Dip- Mix 1 part hot fudge sauce, 1 part fruit yogurt, together and use as a fruit dip.  Beware its yummy by itself as well.  
• Peanut Butter Tortillas - This is my go to sandwich alternative.  Spread some peanut butter on a tortilla and roll or fold up.  Filling, yummy and not super messy.  For an added treat I melt chocolate chips on the peanut butter before I roll it up.  
• Dry Cereal- I have a toddler and preschooler so dry cereal is a great quick and easy to pack snack for being out and about in the summer.  Sometimes I think my kids would eat cereal all day if I let them!

What are your go-to snacks for summer?  

Check out more summer recipe ideas on the Hearts at Home Blog Hop

Hosted by Jill Savage

my 2 cents about Ann Romney

I don't usually chime in on politics but the controversy of this article and own current transition made my blood boil.  The commentator is suggesting that Romney's wife is unqualified to talk about women in the workplace because she was a stay at home mom, and never had a "real" job.  Ann Romney joined Twitter specifically to respond to these comments.

I am currently working through my own transition from trying to be more than just mom: I failed miserably and now our whole family is working to get back something normal.  I was getting in the groove of being a mom, my daughter was almost a year and the baby itch was starting.  Then an opportunity came up for us to pursue a dream of serving as missionaries overseas and we went for it! At the same time we got pregnant with #2.  I thought it would be no big deal to have 2 kids under 2, to make a drastic career change and move our family overseas.

Then it all started to happen and quickly I began to feel like I was on a runaway train that wouldn't stop.  Parenting two kids is not easier than parenting one: Nursing, Diaper Changes, and naps for the infant do take up a lot of time and energy as does entertaining, discipline, feeding and instructing a toddler.  How was I suppose to give my kids the attention they craved and also focus full time on our career change and international move?

Thats when it all hit me that the explosions I would have at my husband at the end of each weekend speaking trip weren't a normal part of adjustment.  They were symptomatic of something bigger.  Something I had run from for 10 years was showing up again with vengeance, and this time the stakes were higher. I had to come to terms that I'm not super-mom, and I was suffering from Depression as a result.

We have changed course and settled in to a more stable life now and I'm adjusting to being just a Stay-At-Home Mom.  Except every day I find myself looking for things that can make me more than "just a mom".  Then I have to remember that I tried that and I failed.  Mom really is a full time job that takes as much energy as any other employment opportunity, if not more because there is overtime.

Right now for our financial situation it would be a lot better if I found work but then I would have to find and pay childcare, and find and pay for a vehicle (we are a 1- car family, always have been), and still try and fit in at least a few of the home tasks around my other job: no thanks, I already tried that and  it didn't work for us.  So would me working really contribute to the family finances if I have to pay for a car and childcare just to work?

There was a set of articles I read in a inter-cultural communications class while in college.  It talked about 5 traits of being feminine and masculine.  To summarize: to be masculine included traits about being strong and providing and choosing cars over dolls.  The last of the points for being feminine was, as I remember, that there is no definition of being feminine.  Some people say being feminine is wearing skirts and staying home and having babies.  Others say its rejecting that and climbing the corporate ladder and making our intellect count in the business world.

So as I make this transition back to just being mom I find myself asking a question.

What is normal and where do I fit as a modern woman?

Third Thursday Thoughts: Super Mom with the Power to...

Life is just beginning to settle into a routine for our family after a cross country move at the beginning of the month and my husband being employed full time outside the home for the first time in nearly a year.  In the moments of high stress, I have daydreamed what it would be like if I had a super power, much like the characters on my daughter's favorite show Super Why!  I wish I could move things with my mind.  I could just think that the box would be unpacked and it would happen.  That instead of spending 3 days in the car driving to our new house we could wave a wand and be there.  It would be so much less stressful don't you think?

It would be wonderful to say the magic words Bippity Boppity Boo and have my kitchen come to life to make dinner and the boxes of books unpack on the shelves.  Oh what a dream that would be. 

Oh but alas, The process of unpacking has reminded us whats important.  The kids haven't even noticed that less than 1/2 of their toys are unpacked,  sitting at a folding table for dinner means we are all closer together to talk and share the day, and garage sales are for finding hidden treasures.  

Hearts at Home has a devotional book called Ordinary Mom, Extraordinary God, by Mary Demuth

You may feel like an ordinary, everyday woman, but you're not. You're a woman with an extra ordinary call on your life - motherhood - and you have an extraordinary God to run to when you need emotional, mental, and spiritual renewal. 

Writer, speaker, and mom Mary DeMuth creatively focuses on the gift of motherhood as she considers:

• resting quietly in the Lord, even on crazy–busy days.
• being thankful for the duties as well as the joys of being a mom.
• offering God a heart to prune so that it can continue to bear good fruit.

God knows you and cares about your burdens. Let Him call you to Himself and fill your days with peace, light, and joy that will show up in the most unexpected and extraordinary ways.

New Chapter, New Blog

This blog has been a place for me to share and write for the last 4 1/2 years.  I started writing before blogs were nearly as commonplace as today.  It was a place for me to write about our adventures as we moved away from home as newlyweds.  We used it to share pics of our kids when they were babies with family hundreds of miles away.  Most recently, we have used it to record the adventure God has taken us on the last 2 years to support Bible Translation.

Right now our family direction is changing and this blog will be, too. I believe God is giving me new inspiration and ideas of how to use this blog to go beyond our family.  You may have noticed a few new things popping up on my blog recently.  Last month I participated in my first blog-hop with Hearts at Home.  Its a ministry to moms that has touched me through their books and resources.  A friend in Florida gave me "Real Moms, Real Jesus" around the time Lydia was born and changed the way I thought about motherhood. Second, Moments to Remember is a link up with a couple of the homeschool blogs, (1+1+1=1 and Homeschool Creations) that have been great resources to me as I begin to do some learning activities with Lydia.  I'm also beginning to write blog posts for OneVerse.  I am excited about this because it's an opportunity we can continue to use this blog to raise awareness of the importance and significance of Bible Translation. OneVerse is a project related to Wycliffe, and their goal is to see scripture projects sponsored one verse at a time.  It only takes $26 to translate one verse of scripture, which takes the overwhelming needs of Bible Translation around the world, and breaks them down into bite-size chunks. Finally, don't worry, I'll continue to include the adventures we have has a family on top of all these new activities.

I have developed a hobby or addiction, depending how you look at it, to digital scrap-booking.  I use GIMP, a photoshop-like open source program, to manipulate virtual papers stickers, ribbons, buttons etc.  to create my pages.  I post my pages and promote a few designers at a second scrapbook blog, cyscraps.blogspot.com, so as not to clutter this blog.  Check it out!

Moment to Remember

Moments to Remember was developed as a simple way to look back on our week as homeschoolers and find photos that encompass the memories we want to remember. 

The week may have been tough, there may have been more bumps than smiles, but in the end these are the moments that keep us going, the ones we need to remember.

Caleb is getting old enough to want to earnestly try to do what big sister is doing.  This week I caught them both using the Do-A-Dot markers together.  Lydia was doing her Letter Mm pages and Caleb was having fun too.

Hearts at Home Blog Hop: Journey of Motherhood

I'm a new Hearts at Home blogger!  Hearts at Home seeks to encourage, educate, and equip every mom in every season of motherhood using Christian values to strengthen families. I'll be blogging each month for them and might someday have a great resource to giveaway! 

Today's questions is When did you realize that you weren’t alone on this journey called Motherhood?

I don't think I have ever felt more alone in motherhood than I do in this transition season our family is in. We moved 6 months ago from the only home our kids had ever had to be near family as we prepare to serve as missionaries in Nigeria. Women need relationships to thrive and its a process to find other moms to be in community with. It takes time and I'm impatient and want it now and quick. It takes time for the roots of a relationship to go down deep and knit two people together in friendship.

Just before I became a mom, my husband got a new job which required us to move. So we packed up and moved, 7 months pregnant to a new home in a new city. I had all kinds of questions with this huge change in such a short time. We went from a 1 bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom house, I had to find a new Doctor and fast, we had more space so I suddenly got to decorate a nursery. Lots of decisions and change in a short time.

When we visited the new company a month before we moved, one of his co-workers knew we were expecting and gave me the info for her playgroup. I was excited to have some resources I could call right away. And call them I did. They helped me find an OB, and invited me to their play-dates even before my child could play. That group of moms became some of my best friends during our time living in Orlando.

One of the best parts of this group was the website one of the husbands help make. We could share with each other and ask questions to the group without having to find the time to meet in person. We share prayer requests, plan our playdates, and stay connected.  Now that we have moved away from this group of friends I am thankful that I can still participate online with them. Even though we aren't in the same state anymore, Being a mother has the same struggles everywhere.

As a mom the hardest part is being interrupted by my kids' needs, have you thought of all the interruptions Jesus had from people asking for miracles and prayer? Check out Hearts at Home's book “Real Moms Real Jesus”  There is a Facebook Book Study starting the first of the year.

Check out what some of the other moms have to say about motherhood!