You Know You're a Mom When...

You know you're a mom when all you can find to write down important information is a crayon.

You know you're a mom when you walk out the door unfazed that you have spit-up on your shoulder and boogers smeared on your pant legs.

You know you're a mom when your keen sense of smell detects that your child has pooped in the other room

You know you're a mom when you can recite in correct time and order the order of PBS Kids shows

You know you're a mom when you're in the store and realize you forgot to change out of your slippers

You know you're a mom when your child hands you a booger and you calmly walk over to the garbage to throw it away and then proceed to do what you were doing before

You know you're a mom when you're sick and still have to do the laundry, change diapers, do the dishes and make dinner

You know you're a mom when you can't remember the last time you were able to sleep through the whole night without having a child wake you up or you yourself needing to wake up to go to the bathroom

You know you're a mom when sleeping in means being excited that you were able to stay in bed until 7am

You know you're a mom when you can remember the first moment your child did NOT throw up on you

You know you're a mom when privacy goes out the window and peeing and pooping and showers are shared by the family

You know you're a mom when you know when a dance party is necessary

You know you're a mom when the moment the precious bundle was placed on your chest your heart was filled with an intense love you've never experienced before

You know you're a mom when you can see past the fighting and arguing and still love your kids as much as the day they were born

You know you're a mom when the little things your kids do melt your heart

Remember to love much, laugh lots, and be goofy

Internal Struggle

I am struggling today. There's this tug-of-war going on inside of me where part of me wants to wallow in my self-pity, the other part of me is trying to see everything through the "glass half full" perspective.

Sunday, we said goodbye to daddy for his work-week away, knowing we'd see him Thursday night when he got home. Monday we found out that once he got to work, it had been decided that he is needed through the weekend and through the following week. It would have been nice to know before he left that we wouldn't be seeing him for 12 days instead of 4, especially since he only packed for a 4-day work day. So, here I am wanting to wallow in my own self-pity making things even more miserable for everyone. 

I know I have two choices: I can be selfish and choose the easy way and nurse my wallowing, or I can step it up and choose to be thankful. I can be thankful that my husband has a job. I can be thankful that I can stay home with the kids. I can be thankful that we have food to eat, warm beds to sleep in, and that everyone is healthy. It's easier to stay positive when you start thinking about the things your thankful for.

Also what is helpful for me is thinking about verses such as: 

"You say, 'I am allowed to do anything,' but not everything is good for you. You say, 'I am allowed to do anything,' but not everything is beneficial."

                                                                                                                                1 Corinthians 10:23

"So we don't look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever."

                                                                                                                                2 Corinthians 4:18

"Be thankful in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus."

                                                                                                                              1 Thessalonians 5:18

"Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and praise His Name."

                                                                                                                                 Psalm 100:4

"Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom He gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts."

                                                                                                                                Colossians 3:16

Don't get me wrong, I sure like to focus on the hard moments in life, but it's definitely not good for me or beneficial to those around me, especially my kids. They need to see that even when life is hard, I have a stronger anchor through Jesus. I will probably continue this struggle throughout my life-time, but knowing that choosing to focus on the One who is my Anchor will keep me looking up through the storms. 

Strawberry Shortcake Cake

My two-year-old has been begging for a Strawberry Shortcake cake for her birthday for the last 2 months. I already decided I was going to try making my own fondant and use it to decorate a cake. After much searching, deciding, changing my mind, and then searching again, I found the perfect cake to make. I started with finding a fondant recipe. I have heard from many people that the store-bought fondant tastes terrible. I wanted to cover the whole cake in it, so I definitely didn't want horrible tasting fondant all over it.

I went to allrecipes.com and found a recipe for marshmallow fondant. After reading many of the reviews, I decided I would try using marshmallow fluff instead of following the directions for melting down the marshmallows. I took 2 cans of marshmallow fluff and stuck them in the refrigerator over night. I'm not sure why, but that's what the reviewer said to do. The next morning, I took them out and emptied them into my mixer. I continued to add powder sugar into the fluff until I thought it seemed like a good consistency. I have never made or used fondant, so I had no idea what the right consistency was supposed to be. Apparently, it's done when it is not sticky anymore. I ended up kneading it with my hands quite a bit, adding more and more powdered sugar. I probably used a whole 32oz bag of powdered sugar by the time I was done.

Next, I divided the fondant into different sized balls, estimating how much of each color I would need. I then proceeded to knead in the pink, red, green and yellow into the different balls, adding more powdered sugar as the coloring created stickier fondant.

I wrapped the balls in plastic wrap and put them in the freezer until I was ready to use them.

For the cake, I took 2 cake mixes, followed the directions on the box, and then poured them into four 9x9 round baking pans and baked them. While they were cooling, I took a whole container of Cool Whip and mixed in a small container of cut up fresh strawberries. After the cake was cooled, I cut out part of the top of each cake, scooped the Cool Whip mixture into the cake and layered the cake, making a 4 layered cake. Then I wrapped the cake in plastic wrap and put it into the freezer until it was completely frozen.

Next, I took a can of buttercream frosting and frosted the cake. I have read that this will help the fondant stick to the cake. Then I put the cake back in the freezer for when I was ready to tackle the fondant.

After letting the fondant thaw a bit, I realized I needed to mix in more powdered sugar, because it had become sticky again. I took the pink fondant and rolled it out using my wooden roller adding lots of powdered sugar, since it kept sticking to the roller. I rolled it out as much as I could and then placed it over the cake. Unfortunately, it was not large enough to go over the whole cake, so I improvised. I cut off some, so that it draped over the cake nicely. Next, I took the green fondant, rolled it out and wrapped it around the bottom of the cake.

I still had powdered sugar all over the fondant, so, after googling what to do, I grabbed my vegetable oil and paper towel, and proceeded to dab away the powdered sugar from the fondant. It worked very well. As for taste...well, I guess we'll find that out at the party :).

Now, I had a problem. I had the whole middle of the cake to figure out what to do about. I had a little bit of buttercream frosting left from a different jar, so I took that, mixed it with a lighter green color. After that, I took the red fondant and made little strawberries out of it. Using the green fondant again, I cut out small daisy-like flowers to use for the leafing on the strawberries. Next, I placed the strawberries as evenly around the cake as I could. I filled in the rest with the green buttercream frosting I had.

Thankfully I had just enough buttercream frosting. I did not want to have to go to the store again! I used the white fondant for the lettering on top of the cake and threw away the yellow.

I'm not sure if I will use fondant again. It wasn't the easiest or cleanest stuff to use, but I was determined to make it work. I am pretty happy with the end result, and I'm hoping it will taste good.

Extraordinary

This evening I was praying that God would speak to me. I feel like there's been this lingering silence and I was needing God to say something to me. I'm not sure if I've ever felt this desperate to want to hear God speak to me before. I've had this nagging tug on my heart the last few days and the tug has just gotten stronger and stronger.

As I prayed, I prayed for God to show me something...anything. I don't know if it's normal to get desperate for some sort of sign from God that you're on the right track when you feel like He's given you a vision to do something, but man, I feel like that a lot these days.

These last few days I feel like God has shown me an area of my life that I need to surrender to Him...more. It's a really ugly part of me that I like to keep hidden away. Unfortunately, like anything else I've tried to hide, God saw it. It came out rearing its ugly head a few times this last week, surprising me. I felt defeated, insignificant, and ashamed the times it happened. It completely ruined my weekend, because I felt so unready to serve God in any area of my life.

This evening after praying, I opened up my Bible to Isaiah. I read in chapter 1 verse 17 God's calling for Israel:

"Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows."

That first sentence caught my eye. "Learn to do good." I asked God, "how am I supposed to learn to do good when I'm so messed up? How am I supposed to learn to do good when I feel so ashamed at my badness?"

I continued to read and I got to chapter 6. I absolutely love Isaiah chapter 6. As I read Isaiah crying out to God saying he was a sinful man, I felt this overwhelming peace wash over me. Isaiah was so scared because he saw God and knew he was going to die because he was a sinner. Verse 7 says:

"He touched my lips with it and said, 'See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.'"

Right after that you read that the Lord asks who will go be the messenger to the Israelites and with no hesitation Isaiah says:

"Here I am. Send me." Isaiah 6:8b

Ah! I need to be like Isaiah. He was overwhelmed with God's presence until God forgave him. As soon as God forgave him, he was ready for his calling.

It's really easy to allow our faults to hinder our growth. We believe that once we have made the decision to follow Christ, we must be perfect little Christians. I'm learning that there is no such thing as this perfect little Christian I have made up in my head. There is, however, someone God is transforming me into, that is if I allow Him to do the work He needs to do in my heart. When I turn my focus from Christ to my faults and failures, my growth is stunted until I re-focus my eyes back on Jesus.

I have written in my Bible along side Isaiah 6:5-9:

Isaiah was not a perfect man, yet he was willing to go where God sent him.

Am I willing to go where God sends me?

Do I want to be a stunted Christian or be the extraordinary child of God I have been called to be?

Am I going to continue to focus on my failures, or allow God to forgive me so we can move on with the growth?

Dear Lord, You have called each and every one of Your children to be extraordinary. You have called us to go wherever You send us and to focus our eyes on You. God, I need You to teach me to be good as I grow closer to You. May I not focus on my sin and guilt, but You, Lord, only You.

The Pause

This morning I was sitting in my kitchen reading my Bible and drinking coffee while the kids were watching Sponge Bob and getting ready for the day. It was a wonderful quiet time...at least the moments where I wasn't interfering between the fighting, turning another Sponge Bob episode on, filling up another sippy cup with juice, getting the toddler off the table, turning on another computer game, getting the toddler off the table, taking my almost three-year-old to the bathroom, breaking up another argument, getting the toddler off the table, turning on a shower...yep, I'm sure either you've been there, or you can picture it very vividly!

As I began to get frustrated, I was reminded of how Jesus was with the children. He specifically told the disciples to let the children come to Him (Luke 18:6). There's just something about a child that is so innocent, so care-free, so pure...it's delightful and refreshing. In that moment, I realized how truly blessed I am.

May I always remember to pause and really soak in the blessings around me. They may seem irritable in the moment, but looking back, there's always a lesson to be learned. It's up to me to decide whether I'm going to take that moment to really hear what God has to teach me, or just let it pass by and miss an important lesson.

Pokeball Cake

My son wanted a pokeball cake for his 8th birthday. So, like many other moms, I went online and got some ideas on how to do that. Here's what I came up with:

I started with 3 cake mixes and a glass bowl. After making one box of cake mix, I poured half of it into the glass bowl and baked it until it was done. It took about 45 minutes.

Next, as the first cake cooled, I poured the other half of the batter into the bowl and baked it until it was done. I allowed plenty of time for the halves to cool and then wrapped them in plastic wrap and put them in the freezer.

Now, my son does not like chocolate very much so, we got creative with the filling. I got some fresh strawberries and cut them up into small pieces until I had about a cup full. Next, I mixed them up with about a cup of cool whip. And there was my filling.

I cut out some of the inside of the bottom layer of the cake, because the cakes didn't quite sit together as nicely as I wanted them to. I would suggest doing this before freezing, since it was a bit difficult to cut through the frozen cake. But, I will do that next time, since this is the first time I've attempted to make a ball shaped cake.

After placing the filling inside the cake, I found I also needed to cut off part of the top of the other cake. So, I did.

As you can see, I had already started to decorate the bottom of the cake. I thought it might be best to start frosting the bottom layer before putting on the top layer. But, I'm sure it didn't really make a difference either way. I have found that microwaving the frosting for about 15 seconds before I put it in the decorating bags helps make it a whole lot easier to squeeze it out of the decorating bags.

The nice thing about making a pokeball, is that you only need 3 colors. So, after mixing the red and black, here is how I continued on with the cake.

I think I've said this before...but frosting is a wonderful thing. You can cover up so many mistakes with it, it's amazing! So, after I added the red, I still had a gap between the white and red. I filled it in with more white, and it helped it look much better. Here is how I finished off the top:

After it was done, I still thought it need something else, so I finished off the cake with adding a black ring of frosting around the middle of the cake.

As for the other 2 cake mixes, I made little pokeball cupcakes. 30 went to my son's class, the rest were for the party. Now, I don't have a special cake plate, so what I've been doing is taking a cookie sheet, flipping it over and covering it in tin foil. It makes for a workable "cake plate". Here is the finishing look:

Kumbaya Syndrome

I am happiest when everyone around me is happy and getting along. If people are having relational issues, I like to try to fix them so that they are happy again. I have this inner urgency to make sure everyone around me is doing ok. I want to fix people's problems and make sure everyone is genuinely happy. It's like I have some kind of Kumbaya Syndrome where if everyone is happy around the campfire singing I am in my element.

I'm coming to the point where I'm realizing that I cannot fix everything. God is showing me that I have absolutely no control over other people's state of mind. No matter how hard I try to force happiness and joy around me, I cannot fix other people's problems. I can be there for people, pray for them and love them, but I cannot fix them. This drives me crazy.

No, I don't want to be God, but I sure like to help Him do His job. Maybe this is a pride issue, maybe it's a control issue or maybe it's a little bit of both. I'm not real sure yet. Either way though, I can choose to try to take over the work He's doing or I can choose to step back and pray and let Him do the fixing His way and in His timing.

I sure have a lot to learn. Thankfully, God is not done with me until by body dies. May I live this life focused on Jesus and the things He has to offer and teach me. My prayer is that I would be a woman of prayer, trusting that God will bring eternal peace and reconciliation to those who love Him in His own timing.