Emily's Birthday Party

Emily's 1st birthday party was over a month ago, and I just now sat down and edited some of the pictures. I am totally out of the running for Mom Of The Year, but oh well. At least I took pictures.........

That day was the busiest day ever! I was still cooking when our guests started arriving and I didn't have time to take many pictures of the food and the decorations. I could have taken pictures of the food after the party, but it was almost all gone. What can I say? I'm a good cook!

This is her birthday hat that I "made" and she wore it for about 30 seconds.

Her smash cake that I also made.

She is NOT a fan of getting her hands dirty, so she wasn't too sure about touching her cake...

...but she finally dug in...

...and she ate about two bites before she had a meltdown and was ready to get cleaned up.

And here are the cupcakes that everyone else ate. I wish I had taken more (and better) pictures of them. My brother-in-law didn't think they were real when he first saw them!

Presents! She got blocks,

clothes,

a wagon full of beach/sand toys,

a push-around car,

and a red wagon from her daddy and me!

Here are some other random pictures from our day...

The Puzzle

Lately I have been feeling like my life is like a one thousand piece puzzle. It's so hard for me to get all of the pieces to connect and sometimes I just have to step away for a while, but in the end I come back to it with a fresh perspective and all of the pieces eventually come together. My biggest struggle is trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. I thought I had it all figured out, but as you can tell from my last post, I clearly do not. 

Being a mother is a full-time job, and the most important job that I will ever have. I love being a mom, but at the end of the day, after that is all that I have done, I just don't feel accomplished. I feel like something is missing from my life and while I do not in any way want a "normal" job, I want to do something. 

And so, I have this dream of something that I want to do. I love it more than teaching, but teaching I know I can do. I love it more than the idea of nursing, and nursing I know that I can't do. It's something that I already do every single day but for some reason I just fail to see that I am good at it. Deep, deep down, I know that I am good at it. I know that I have a talent. I am just afraid to admit it to myself or to anyone else because I am afraid. I am afraid of failing. 

I want to be a photographer. 

There, it's out. I said it. Now you know. 

I just don't know how to turn that dream into a reality.

I've spent a lot of time lately looking at other photographers' work. I've been comparing what I do to what they do and honestly? I can do this. I can do this well. I just have to remind myself that I can. 

I can. I can do this. 

"Anyone can take a picture, but it takes someone special to capture a moment." 

I made that up. Just now, in my head. It's ok, you can be impressed. I certainly am.

Spring

In case you were wondering, that tree limb did land that way in my backyard during a storm this week. And yes, that calf does have five legs.

Plans

I heard the other day that 24 teachers are going to be laid off in our county at the end of this school year. If that is true, the chances of me finding a job just went to zero. I know (well, I believe) that everything happens for a reason, and that what is meant to be, will be. But lately I am having a hard time trying to understand why my life has turned out the way that it did. I have also become even more discouraged and upset than I already was with our government. I can understand that there need to be budget cuts, but do they really have to take away from schools? From the children? Sigh.......


My plans were great, noble plans, or so I thought. I was going to do something that surely God would have wanted me to do - it was much greater than simply being a wife and mother. My plans for my life were a lot different than God's plans. When I started college, my plan was to get my nursing degree, then transfer to another school in Atlanta where I would get my Midwifery certificate. I was going to deliver catch babies. And that's not all I was going to do, oh no. I was going to take those Midwifery skills and go to Africa and catch babies and educate mothers about breastfeeding and make a difference in the world. I was going to be Mother Teresa Junior, and I was going to do big things.

Unfortunately, I failed Anatomy. Twice. And there was no way I was even going to risk taking Chemistry and cause my GPA to fall even lower. And you all remember what happens when I see needles, right? So yeah, nursing is NOT something that I can, or should do.

After the unfortunate anatomy flops, I lost my scholarship and I quit going to all of my classes halfway through my third semester. I was doing all kinds of crazy things and I broke up with my boyfriend and it all got so bad that I had to seek psychiatric help. I was seven kinds of screwed up and my life was spinning out of control. Then my counselor suggested that I take an aptitude test, which told me exactly what I had known since I was a little girl playing school with my brother; I was cut out for teaching, and really not anything else.

I could be a teacher. There are no needles involved in teaching, and very rarely is there any blood. Fast forward to May 2008 and there I am, walking across the stage as a teacher. Teaching isn't exactly as fun or exciting as babies, but obviously it was what I was supposed to do, otherwise God wouldn't have let me get as far with it as I did. He would have steered me in another direction, or put up a roadblock so that I would go another route. But He didn't and now I have a two-year old teaching degree that is covered in dust from going unused for all this time (as well as thousands of dollars in student loan debt). And I don't know what to make of it all.
If I was supposed to go to Africa (or any other poor, desolate country that needed me), surely God would have sent me there before I got married and had a baby. I can't just up and leave and go to Africa now. So what am I supposed to do with my life? I feel like there is something more that I am supposed to be doing with my life, I'm just not sure what that is yet.

At times I think that God is trying to tell me that I will teach, just not in the way that I envisioned. I think He's trying to tell me that he wants me to homeschool my children, and I LOVE that idea. I cannot stand to be away from Emily (I am away from her right now and it is killing me) and I dread the thought of sending her away for the majority of her time awake when she is only four years old. I don't understand how people do it, but maybe in three years I will be ready for that time away from her. Somehow I doubt that.

It's funny isn't it, how life works out? How our plans are so much different than God's plans and even though we think we know what is best, His plans are better. It's so funny, I forgot to laugh.....

You Capture: Quiet

She's quiet at night, snuggled up with Daddy before bedtime.

She's quiet when her mouth is full.

 She's quiet when she is climbing the front porch steps, so concentrated & trying not to fall.

She's quiet when she swings because she's still not sure if she loves it or if she hates it.

She's quiet while she watches the dog.....

.....and while she waits to go outside.

But my favorite of all is when we are quiet together. I have to savor these moments because they are almost over.....

You can see many more beautiful You Capture photos here.