Excuse the mess.

So... sorry for those of you who are seeing my blog in such a mess...
A few years ago, while Kevin was playing with kids, he accidentally spilled a glass of water all over my laptop. UGHHH!!! BUT... a wireless keyboard, lots of rice and a few months of sitting and it miraculously works again. Except for on the very annoying occasion when you use it for too long and it overheats and shuts down right in middle of you doing something. Which happened tonight while I was mid-overhall on my blog. Hopefully tomorrow I can fix it up, if the computer decides to work by then. Until then... Excuse my mess!!

Mary or Martha? What is your legacy saying?

I often ask myself... What kind of legacy am I leaving my children? and for that matter others around me? I have so many great women in my life who have, and continue to, leave a Godly legacy: an example to follow, an instruction book.
Sometimes though we can become guilty of looking at these people as if they are gods. We only see their heroic acts for the Lord, as a mother, a wife, and ministry partner, but we fail to remember that they, just like me(and many other I am sure), have their days, probably more often than not, where they wonder what kind of a difference they are making, and feel like every move they make is a failure.
As moms and wives we are especially hard on ourselves. Nothing is ever good enough, we are always trying for more. I think to myself sometimes... Why did God create us like that? Like many other things in life God gave us some traits that were meant for good but the curse of sin has turned them into something, well... not so good.
I don't know about anyone else but it seems to me like each day I get up with a full list of things to accomplish, and it never all gets done, or at least not to my standards. Then I go to bed with a list of unfinished business and it just adds to the list for tomorrow. It's never good enough. I'm always adding things to my already jam packed schedule along the way, making an impossible task even more impossible. The house is never all clean at once(unless someone else has my kids for more than a day), there is always laundry to be done(lets be honest with 6 ,going on 7, people in the house there is always dirty laundry somewhere), there are always dirty dishes in the sink, or waiting to come out of the dishwasher...
 Even as I write this I think to myself, all of these things are important, but in the end they are meaningless in our endeavor towards kingdom work.
Am I going to leave a legacy of having the cleanest house, always having the laundry done, etc... I don't know about you but while all those things would be nice, that's not what I am striving to be remembered for. So WHY do I stress myself out, to the point of feeling like a failure, when these things aren't done?!? Then at the end of every night I still lay in bed thinking... What legacy did I leave today?
Recently in our Journey readings we read about Mary and Martha. You know the story... Jesus is at their house, and Mary is soaking up every minute as his feet that she can get, while Martha is bitterly slaving away in the kitchen, mumbling under her breathe. The Lord says to Martha, YOUR MISSING WHAT IS IMPORTANT!!! Hello Martha?!?
Ummm, Hello KELLI?!
He didn't condemn the work that she was doing, it is important for the emotional and physical health of your family for you to keep your house in order, not chaos, but what he was saying was PRIORITIZE.
I've given myself this speech a thousand times! I do good for a while and then I fall right back into the sinful pattern of being so busy with other things that I miss what is really important. Sometimes, most of the time actually, the things that I am busying myself with are not sinful in and of themselves. Sometimes it is even ministry work! GASP, I know... yes, even good work can be sinful if it has taken a wrong place in the priority line up. So today I am reminding myself, and encouraging you to PRIORITIZE! Even if it means your laundry has to wait until tomorrow. Spend your day helping your kids discover the love of Christ in the world all around them, play with them, feed yourself and strengthen yourself in the Word, do something that is worth someone remembering.
What kind of legacy are you leaving? Are you a Mary or a Martha? 

The pic

Week 7 Update

Well, I spoke WAY too soon last week when I said that I wasn't really feeling that pregnancy exhaustion and I wasn't all that sick. Week 7 hormone levels laughed in my face.
 Now, I can be deathly ill and never complain, but stomach sickness is not for me. I try my best to put on a happy mommy face but I am not very good at it. I despise throwing up. I love EVERYTHING about being pregnant, except throwing up morning, noon, and night for about 16 weeks. On another note, I was deathly ill with both boys, and not so much with the girls... so my best guess is that this is a boy. Or that pregnancy number 5 will be unpredictable.
In other news, apparently the ab muscle have had their fair share and have decided that they are done, because there is already a bump. One day I was working on getting my pre-pregnancy abs back and fitting into my old jeans and the next I have a low belly bump and the jeans wont button. You think I'm crazy right? I took a picture. That I can not for the life of me get to upload here for some reason. I'll add it as soon as i figure it out.
On a funny note, Carson, our 6 year old, while under the influence of laughing gas, told the anesthesiologist that "mommy is having a baby but she isn't fat yet." Thanks son!!
:)

Pregnancy Cravings

So far I have been craving Chicken salad(with grapes, not celery) and Broccoli. Sounds like some healthy pregnancy craving to me. Maybe Baby P is trying to tell me that I have been consuming too much junk lately.

You know, they say that your body craves what it needs and is repulsed by what you have plenty of, nutrients wise. I'm not sure that applies to candy and sweets though. True or False??

Here are some of my cravings, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Baby #1- I craved bread sticks and cheese and dairy(seeing as how I hate dairy and it is not ordinarily a part of my diet this might by a point for the True category)
Baby #2- I don't think I particularly craved anything but I repulsed chicken(seeing as how we ate chicken for nearly every meal that we could afford to have meat with, because chicken was cheap, this made it very hard at meal prep time. Raw chicken just put me over the edge.)
Baby #3- I craved donuts(epic fail, pretty much can say that's in the false category)
Baby #4- Eggs and peanut butter, together(I guess I must have needed protein), and while I eat these things normally maybe once a month, I was eating them everyday, sometimes twice a day. I would fry an egg over easy, toast a bagel, put peanut butter on it while it was still hot so it got all melty, and then put the egg on and make a bagel sandwich. It was messy but it was so good.
Baby #5- It's really too early to confirm a solid craving but Chicken Salad and Broccoli have been consistent all week

So... True of false? Does your body crave what it needs? Or repulse what it doesn't need?
What were some of your cravings?

BTW if anyone has a good chicken salad recipe that includes grapes, let me know. I can't find it made in stores anywhere, with just grapes. They have fruit and nuts, or celery.

We're adding another little pumkin to our patch!

Baby #5
Due to arrive early May

Surprisingly not feeling the classic fatigue. However, I have spent every morning, and afternoon of the past 2 weeks, getting sick in other peoples dirty toilets. I mean it is one thing to get sick at home, and even at the office, but while cleaning someone else's toilet?!? Guess it's just a blessing that I'm right there anyways. More updates to come!!

Proper Perspective.

Wow... In the last 3 months I have went from an OCD Stay at home mommy who always had a spotless house and everything organized to a working mom who cleans other peoples houses all day and has no energy left when I get home to clean my own house. I love working, don't get me wrong, but I really miss being at home with my babies. Oh how my perspective has changed.
Tonight, instead of cleaning(which trust me my house desperatly needs right now) My eyes were opened to a new perspective. I started clearing the table from our dinner and this CUTE little girl walked up to me and said "hold me mommy"
I know it all happened within a matter of second but it seemed like my whole body, especially my heart just melted. I thought... This baby girl will be 2 in a few weeks and soon those mommy hold me's" will not happen anymore. So I dropped everything and held her. Now normally this would have driven me insane to be sitting around looking at my messy house and not doing anything about it but tonight I just enjoyed it. Every minute of it. Until I got peed on! Lol. True story, we were trying out big girl panties and had an accident(in mommies lap). Even in that moment I thanked the Lord for all those years I had at home to just snuggle with my babies, and I appologized for not always taking complete advantage of those moments that I would give anything for right now.
I am a blessed woman, and although blessed has taken on a different meaning now days, it is still blessed. It's all about perspective!