People raising their babies right.

I heard this on a show and it stuck with me. A constant thing you think about as a parent is am I doing this right?? Should I be doing this? Most always go unanswered. However, I am learning how much easier my decision making is when I spend time in prayer. I may not have the answers and I am so much more confident in my decision making when I know that he is on my side. 

I have my amazing parents to thank for this. When I'm at my lowest or in a time of confusion and chaos,I can hear my sweet mommas voice saying "trust God baby" "he will never leave you or forsake you" I hear verse after verse and specific prayers she repeated to me growing up. This is love. I made my mistakes growing up. Hurt myself, hurt my parents but I was always fed words of encouragement. I was constantly prayed over even when I didn't know. Even at a time of the biggest loss in our life. Losing my brother, my moms first born. I never saw her lose faith. Her faith is constant. Her faith is strong. Her faith is contagious. 

I hope I'm half the mom she is. Every decision I make I pray it is done with the same conviction of knowing I need my Lord and Savior to come first in my decision making. I know I will not be perfect, every decision won't be perfect, but knowing that He has my back and won't fail me I will be able to find peace in that. 

If all else fails I hear the words from my dad saying "well you better get on your knees" :) 

So thanks mom and dad for everything you have done and continue to do for me. For us. 

It's been a minute!

I know I am horrible at keeping up with this blog, but oh well we have been busy. I haven't posted since the beginning of the year and so much has changed. I can't even begin to some up all the things that have gone on over the last eight months.  We have had some good times and some tough times, but overall this year has been tons of fun! Our little Violet has grown so much every week there is something new with her. She is growing so fast that we really can't keep up. She doesn't do anything half paced. Always moving and ready to go "bye-bye" all the time! She is such a joy to be around always keeping me laughing and of course on my toes. It's hard for me to remember she is still just 19 months old. She acts so much older, but we have those moments where I have to check myself and say she is still just baby. Even though there isn't much "baby" about her. I can write all day about how amazing she is, but there will be plenty of time for that later. ;)

As for now, we are busy with summer activities. We are enjoying going to the lake when we can and playing in the pool any chance we can get. School will be starting soon for most children and although we decided to hold Vi back from preschool for another year doesn't mean we won't be doing our own little "learning times" at home. Today I spent most of Violet's nap time working on what our weekly schedule will be like for us starting next week. I did a lot of reading on toddler learning and different preschool curriculums that we can work with. Violet thrives best when we constantly change things up and do things different so i'm sure this schedule will be forever changing but for now I have something we can start with. I will post later about what that schedule will look like.

I don't know if I have said this on here before, but I will say it now.  I am so blessed to be able to stay at home with our little girl. I love being the one that is teaching her all this new stuff and seeing her do all these new things. It never gets old. Staying at home is a sacrifice. My wonderful husband works very hard so that I can stay home. We sacrifice a lot of extra things for ourselves so that we would be a lot easier if I would go back to work, but we both agree that this is more important.

Perry and I are going on our first camping trip this year this weekend. Hopefully, we won't get rained out, but regardless we are going. I'm excited about going because I have never been backpack camping before. Let's face it i've only been tent camping at a state park once that I can even remember. So sad. Perry wants to start hiking the Appalachian Trail in sections this year so we are going to ease me into it by hiking in Bankhead with some of our favorite family members (Nikki & David). I am also going to attempt hammock camping. I will let you know how it goes after this weekend.

For now the little one is waking up. I will post again later!