It Is Well, With My Soul…Time to Reflect

Now that the dust has settled and the news of Blessing #2 is public, I have finally taken the time to take a step back from the emotional whirlwind/roller coaster and reflect…

Since I have made the news public, I have received all sorts of e-mails, texts, calls, etc. from people who feel the need to remind me how blessed I am, how lucky I am, and how this is all in God's perfect timing. At first I got frustrated…I wondered…"Do I really come off as a completely negative person who is always complaining about my horrible life? Are my blog posts/FB status updates so discouraging to others that they feel the need to remind me and put things in perspective for me? Or is my honesty to how I am really feeling too much for some to handle and should I just keep that to myself…am I being judged for how honest I am? Do I not state enough how blessed I am at the end of everything I write about? What does this all mean"? I do have to admit that after I was pushed over the edge with one last message about how blessed I am, I got a bit sarcastic on Facebook and decided to add "I am so blessed" to the end of most of my status updates whether or not they made sense..yes, I know, that is horrible, but I was coping! 


As I reflected more, I decided not to take personally all the things people have been telling me (unsolicited advice most of the time), remember that most people have good intentions and most of them are just trying to encourage me and make me feel better. 


As I have slowly "let go and let God" (if you will) He has been revealing himself to me through my daily time with Him and songs. To be honest, ever since I found out I was pregnant, I was probably the furthest away from God than I have been in a long time. I wasn't angry, because I know He is Sovereign, but I was complacent. I really didn't want to be told one more time "this is all in God's timing" or "He knows what is best for you" or "aren't you just so excited?" I figured that if I stayed far away from the Bible and closeness with God I wouldn't have to hear Him tell me the exact same things. I contemplated when I was was going to make the news public (ie. post it on Facebook) but it wasn't until January 17th that I really opened my Bible with an open mind ready to hear what God had to say. Of course, He always knows when to speak to me at the perfect times. I was coming to the end of my reading for the day when finished with 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18


Thessalonians 5:16-18 "Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Wow! I felt like God was talking directly to me…"Emily, get out of your funk, change your attitude and be joyful! This is my will for your life whether you like it or not!" In that moment, I got excited and my heart started to soften. I got a smile on my face imagining the life that God has planned for us as a family of four, the dynamic of Aubrey and her little sibling and that in just about 5.5 months I will get to meet this sweet little bundle! 


At church on Sunday God totally spoke to me through the worship music. We sang an old hymn that really spoke to my heart, I began to cry and for once in a long time, I felt complete peace as if angels were singing to me…Here are the lyrics in the song that just resonated with me…

"Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,

IT IS WELL, IT IS WELL, WITH MY SOUL"!

(You can listen to the full song here)

As much as I may have come off as not being grateful for this new adventure in our lives, I am feeling comfort knowing that God knows me well enough to give me a second baby at the perfect time. Am I still scared? YES! Do I wonder what this new dynamic will look like? YES! Do I question my ability to be just as good of a mother to a second child as to my first? YES! Does the idea of being able to juggle having a newborn, chiseling and shaping a toddler, being a loving wife, an invested mother, a loyal and available friend, and a committed Christian completely FREAK ME OUT? YES!!!! But one thing I know for sure is that this is God's will for me in Christ Jesus (as cliche and "churchy" as that sounds) and I can't wait to see what He has in store!!! IT IS WELL, IT IS WELL, WITH MY SOUL!!

What is a blog post without a photo? This is the first photo I have taken but it was about 3 weeks ago. New one to come soon (there is definitely a lot more to show)!

Reactions to the news...

I guess disbelief is what I get when I play a joke on everyone for April Fools! 

The Joke's on me…Updates!

We sure have stayed busy the last couple of months. We celebrated Thanksgiving with a relaxing time with the in-laws. I stayed busy around the house in November with numerous house guests and lots of cooking. December was a packed month as we celebrated Christmas early with the in-laws, did lots of Christmas shopping (rushing around) and prepared for our three week trip to visit my family. The beginning of December was super stressful which pretty much turned me into a super cranky person. I didn't put up one Christmas decoration, had no desire to do anything, didn't really take one photo and I feel like I completely lost sight of EVERYTHING Christmas is supposed to be about. To say the least, I am glad Christmas is over.

Andy and I had a good talk about how we will do things so differently next year. This holiday season was an all time low for us in so many ways and we don't want this to be the beginning of the rest of our lives for the holidays. Sometimes Andy and I feel like we don't belong anywhere during the holidays. We are pulled in so many different directions, have so many obligations and sometimes feel like we are trying to please everyone else and we don't get the chance to make our own family traditions. We are a family now, and we need to do our thing and start our own traditions.

Next year will be a complete new dynamic with baby #2 here…Yes, I typed it! Baby #2 you all are probably just as shocked as I was when I found out I was pregnant (only a few people know my real response, but I won't share that). This was definitely NOT in my plans but being on birth control, not even knowing if I really wanted another child and not even having the thought in my head…I know it is GOD's plan for our life. It has taken me quite some time to come to grips with a second child…but to be honest, I don't know if I fully have come to grips with it and don't know if/when I will. The one thing that makes me hopeful is that this is completely out of my hands and I know God is teaching me some huge things through this experience (besides the fact that I can't control and plan everything, still trying to figure out what else). I have been overwhelmed with so many emotions..tears (lots of them), feeling like a horribly selfish person for not being super excited when there are so many people out there who want to be pregnant but can't, complacent, unmotivated, feelings of depression, upset at how hard I worked to lose 40lbs and now I will pack it all back on…pretty much any emotion that one human can have in the course of three months. I was already two months pregnant when I found out, so now here I am…baby due to arrive July 28th and I am still trying to figure out how to wrap my mind around it all.

People who already know have asked when I will make it public and I usually reply "Probably, when I am on my way to labor and delivery in July!" I thought I should share with everyone sooner rather than later since it is becoming pretty obvious that I am either pregnant or packing on some winter pounds. Plus, the parents and in-laws will be happy that they can finally tell everyone.

Besides all the regular thoughts about how I am going to make our lives work with two kids…I have some pretty selfish thoughts about how being pregnant is going to put a kink in some of the major things happening in the spring…January-Andy has a cocktail/formal event in which I have to dress up (not feeling cute…just feeling fat), February- 10 days in Hawaii kid free with two of my best friends and hubby (again…bathing suit and not quite looking prego…just packing on pounds), March-Bachleorette party in Vegas (ticket bought, no turning back, everything about that is horrible being prego), April- In a wedding at a winery (wonder if they are really going to be able to alter the already ordered dress to fit a 7 month belly), June- My 30th birthday, July- Baby #2!! So there it is…keep us in your prayers!

January 17: Here I am some time later and since I have opened up my heart to hear what the Lord wants me to hear, He gives me this verse this morning… 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 "Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

Simple, yet amazingly powerful in my life today. I am so thankful for a God who knows every intricate   detail of who I am and understands just the right timing for everything in my life.

April 1, 2011

Joke's on you…

December 1, 2011

Joke's on me!!!

(I love this brochure that my Mom brought home from her pregnancy center about how to deal when your teenage daughter tells you she is pregnant. It made me laugh.)

Catch up…My birthday!

Here is the beginning of my attempt to get caught up in the world of blogging with hopes to get my blog printed for Christmas.

Waaaaay back in June Andy planned a perfect 29th birthday party for me. He rented a stretch excursion limo, invited seven of my closest friends and their spouses and headed to Temecula to do some wine tasting. He couldn't have picked a better crowd of people to celebrate the beginning of my last year in my twenties. We had a picnic lunch at Weins winery, visited a few more wineries, then headed back to our house to continue the festivities with a BBQ. A few more couples who weren't able to attend wine tasting came for dinner and it was nice to get to celebrate with a few more friends.

This birthday was one of my most memorable yet. Not because of what was planned, but because of the friends who surrounded me. I know I have amazing friends when I can invite friends from all walks of life (who may or may not know each other) and everyone has a blast, no one is caddy, everyone takes interest in getting to know each other better and new friends exchange numbers with old friends. It was such a nice feeling to know that the friends who celebrated with me will be lifelong friends and we have many years of celebrating ahead of us!

Getting ready to leave 

Birthday girl planking 

Fall Time!

Yeah, yeah, yeah…I am slacking…Hey, I still have blogs to write about from June, but here are a few adorable photos of Aubrey on her third Halloween all dressed up like a pirate and a few photos from some of the things we have done this fall.

Aubrey's first painting endeavor. We painted a mason jar like a pumpkin and added a tealight candle.

She then decided to paint on the paper we gave her. 

About a week before Halloween we took Aubrey to trunk-n-treat at the YMCA and met up with some of our dear friends the Velasco family. Here is Aubrey with baby Caleb and below with her first love Josiah. 

Aubrey loved her pirate costume and didn't want to take it off…

I thought it would be cute if we matched :)

The weekend before Halloween, we joined the George family and headed to the Live Oak Canyon pumpkin patch. There were lots of cute little rides and Aubrey had so much fun with her sweet friend Roman. 

The monkey swiped the veggie straw straight from the baby's hand…

We paid $1 to shake the monkey's hand…Aubrey was amused.

Later that day we met up with the Martinez family and headed up to Oak Glen for a picnic, a hike and some raspberry picking. 

 On Halloween day we went out to Immanuel Baptist Church in Highland for their fall festival. It was a fun event full of free games and prizes for all ages. 

 Aubrey and her best buddy Micah…

 They were in their own little world…

 Checking out where they want to go first…

 Grandpa Burton and Aubs…

The New Ride and the Super Long Story Behind it...

*Yet another long story, but I needed to write out all the details to have a record of God's faithfulness. 


THE BACKGROUND:
A few weeks ago my Xterra started acting up. I was grocery shopping and came out to a car that wouldn't start. For a second I thought I might be out of gas, so a kind gentleman helped me put gas in it and it still wouldn't start (I knew I didn't need gas but it was worth a shot). I called AAA and waited 3 hours for a tow truck. When we got the Xterra to the shop the mechanic was able to start it right up…of course! Well, the mechanic had it for a couple days and found nothing wrong with it except it needed new brakes (which had nothing to do with the problem, but I got them changed). Two days later, my car started doing the exact same thing and it broke down again…called a tow truck and took it back to mechanic. After a few days he finally realized it was the distributor and it was going to cost about $500 to replace…fine do it…no big deal (still less than having a car payment). Once he replaced the distributor he realized that didn't fix the problem and the real problem was the internal gears and I needed a new engine. Hey, at least he was honest with me, didn't charge me a penny, put my old distributor in and sent me on my way.

THE DECISIONS:
Now we are hit with a decision…replace the engine on an 11 year old car with 170K miles on it (that we only had for 2 years) or buy a car…Well, after lots of discussion we decided to start shopping for a new car. We were not excited about this as we haven't had a car payment in a long time, so the idea of paying interest on an item that depreciates was painful. We surveyed our options…pay cash for something that wasn't the favorite car in the world or finance something a little nicer that was reliable. We did the cash thing for the Xterra but we never fully trusted that truck. We never took it on long trips and I shouldn't have been toting my toddler around in something we weren't confident in, but it served its purpose and got us through two years without a car payment.

THE HUNT:
We were on a mad hunt…we had connections with a friend of mine whose brother is the GM of a whole auto mall. All we knew for sure was what we wanted to spend, that we definitely wanted another SUV and that we were in love with the Honda Pilot. We had no idea what we could get with our money but our connection had his people working hard for us. We looked at tons of SUVs and started doing lots of research soon realizing that our cash price was not going to get us what we really wanted. We decided to up our price bracket and were at peace about financing a little bit.

After comparing all of the SUVs on the market, we kept falling back on a brand new Honda Pilot, but there was no way we were going to spend 40K on a car AGAIN (we have done that in the past and it was probably the stupidest thing we could have done). The dealers almost even talked us into a "lease to own" program that Honda offers and two times we almost packed up, went down to the dealer and settled for a lease, but neither of us felt at ease about it. Also, used Honda Pilots are almost impossible to find because people love and keep their Pilots.

HOW GOD WORKS:
It was a Wednesday, we test drove a Nissan Armada, we loved it (even brought it home to see if it would fit in the garage and it did), got back to the dealer and decided to get the credit application started, but Andy had to leave to go work at the fair (which I think was divine intervention) so we couldn't finish the buying process. I went home and of course started second guessing the decision to buy the Armada. I'm from Humboldt, shouldn't I be more caring of the environment? Why would I be driving a massive boat that gets 13 MPG? I started to feel bad thinking that even if I had 4 kids one day (which isn't likely) I would never need that much space. Then I started doing some research and found that the '05 Armada was the WORST rated SUV for that year! Phew, the Lord revealed that to me and I was quickly over the idea of buying that Armada, but then we were back to square one. UGH!!!

I woke up Thursday morning feeling very discouraged because the car shopping process is draining…driving all around southern California looking at different cars, trying to find a sitter, spending every waking moment on the computer searching, being completely off schedule, dealing with car salesmen, feeling guilt for not buying from someone who spent so much time with me etc. I call my Dad and he gave me some really encouraging words. He asked me "what are the desires of your heart?" I told him that I really desired the Honda Pilot and I feel like I would be settling if I got anything else. I also told him that my desire was to not be in bondage to a car for five years and that we didn't want to spend more than a certain amount of money.  He then said, "Then make your requests known to God. Tell Him what you want and have faith that he is going to provide it for you." Through this whole process we did do a lot of praying (which is why I think things happened the way they did), but we never made our real requests known to God. Before I even opened up my computer to begin my morning search, Andy and I stopped and prayed…We made our requests known to God and shared the desires of our hearts.

I opened the computer and started my search…the very first vehicle to pop up was this 2008 Honda Pilot with 50K miles on it, it had leather (which was a must for me) and it was under our price range! Just so you know, up until this point I had searched everywhere over the internet for a used Honda Pilot in my area and never found one that met our needs. This is was the first time I had ever seen this listing and I felt overwhelmed that this may be the car that God placed in our path. We decided to go look at it that day, took it for a test drive and bought it.

IT GETS BETTER:
They ran our credit and we find out that we have an extremely high credit score, in fact, the finance manager said he has never in his career seen such a high credit score and "we could buy ten cars today if we wanted." We were planning on financing through our bank because they had a pretty good rate of 3.9% and they offered a 3 year 36,000 mile bumper to bumper comprehensive warranty that beat the dealer's prices by about $700, plus there is no deductible (and the dealer's is $100). When we went into the room to sign our papers the finance man says, "Hey, you guys have amazing credit and our banks would be chomping at the bit to carry your loan. How about I give you a 2.4% interest rate?" We told him that was great and all, but our bank beats their warranty program. He then said. "We'll, match it." We then reminded him that our bank has no deductible and theirs is $100. He said, "We'll match it!" We walked out of the dealer with a car payment that is pretty much the same as our cell phone bill and we will have the car paid off in a couple years! We feel truly blessed and we are so glad the process is over.

LESSONS LEARNED:


#1 It is impossible to get out of a car dealership in less than 5 hours even if you know what you want.


#2 It pays to do your research, sleep on it and don't settle.


#3 Get something that will last at least 10 years because the car buying process sucks and it will probably take me that long to get over the pain!



#4 MAKE YOUR REQUESTS KNOWN TO GOD AND HE WILL GIVE YOU THE DESIRES OF YOUR HEART!

Sometimes Grey's Anatomy has it all right...

"You think that true love is the only thing that can crush your heart, the thing that will take your life and light it up, or destroy it…then you become a mother." -Merideth Grey

That pretty much sums it up…