HBD Catch Up

I've celebrated my kids birthdays with zealous excitement... but I forgot to do their questions!!  Let's see what happens...

23 Questions for my birthday girl.   4 year old Nola

1. What is your favorite color? Pink

2. What is your favorite toy? Night Night

3. What is your favorite fruit? Grapes

4. What is your favorite tv show? Osso

5. What is your favorite movie? Frozen

6. What is your favorite thing to wear? Dresses

7. What is your favorite animal? giraffes and pandas and lions

8. What is your favorite song? Watch Me "The Whip Song"

9. What is your favorite book? Frozen

10. Who is your best friend? Ellis

11. What is your favorite snack? fruit snacks

12. What is your favorite drink? Orange Juice

13. What is your favorite breakfast? Ravioli

14. What is your favorite lunch? ChickFilA

15. What is your favorite dinner? Nofing

16. What is your favorite game? Wii Game

17. What is your favorite thing to play outside? Play hide and seek

18. What is your favorite holiday?  Christmas

19. What do you sleep with at night? Night Night and sometimes Shonda and Rhonda and Finn

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? Ana and Elsa

21. What do you think about Nate? I want Nate to be a monster.

22. What do you think about daddy?  He is awesome at grilling.

23. What do you think about mommy? I want her to wear a princess costume.

23 Questions for my birthday boy.  5 year old Nate

1. What is your favorite color? Blue

2. What is your favorite toy? playing games

3. What is your favorite fruit? watermelon

4. What is your favorite tv show? Power Rangers

5. What is your favorite movie? Inside Out

6. What is your favorite thing to wear? Just clothes

7. What is your favorite animal? gorilla

8. What is your favorite song? Taylor Swift

9. What is your favorite book? I don't like books

10. Who is your best friend? Noah

11. What is your favorite snack?   fruit snacks

12. What is your favorite drink? chocolate milk

13. What is your favorite breakfast? Pancakes

14. What is your favorite lunch? Ravioli

15. What is your favorite dinner? McDonalds

16. What is your favorite game? Wii Ninjas

17. What is your favorite thing to play outside? Swim

18. What is your favorite holiday?  Christmas

19. What do you sleep with at night? Ninja Turtle blanket and a pillow

20. What do you want to be when you grow up? just a boy

21. What do you think about Nola? silly and funny

22. What do you think about daddy?  I like his music.

23. What do you think about mommy? I love her.

Little Bit

Just a little bit of an update...


Dear Blog,
It's been too long. 
I have a problem, when life get super busy, some things fall to the side. 
Also, if you would like to buy me a new lap top (MacBook Air, I need you back).  Then I promise I'll be able to write more often.
                    Love, Courtney




Christmas CHECK... we survived and it was good.  My favorite things were seeing the joy on my kids faces.  Shopping online with Nate has he knew exactly which powerranger nonsense he wanted. Watching Nola enjoy her new babies, which she initially named Baby Bottle and then Finn.  Finn is a girl, and she sleeps ALL the time.

January came and went!  My amazing husband works full time at Sears now and watches Nate and Nola three days a week!  It is the MOST amazing thing to feel like we have more of partnership than we did before!  I'm loving it, and praying that he continues to love it.  I know that some days are slow at Sears... and it is retail life.  Those things make it challenging.  I also find it challenging that I have to create breaks differently than I did before.  Weekends, he works, which means its me and the kids all weekend together. 

February... Month of loving those around you!!  I loved myself well, 7 lbs lighter, and feeling great!  Still focused on losing more!  I've signed up to run/walk the Charleston Bridge run with some new friends from school, AND I'm on day 40 of my #fitnessblender workout challenge for busy people. 

I am 34 years old.  I am so ready to make this body of mine stronger and do what I'm telling it to do!


My word this year is simplify.  My choices are to simplify.  Make things more streamline, EVERY food, EVERY event, EVERY moment, EVERY chore needs to be easier, make more sense, and run smoother.  To bring peace to my home and heart :) 

Hope will Hold

I was a very shy kid.  I didn't want a lot of attention.  I didn't want people to look at me.  I preferred behind the scenes.  I knew that I needed time alone to be around large crowds of people.  My friends were WAY more spontaneous than I was.  At times, I wished I could be, but I was so uncomfortable sometimes in my own skin that being alone, or hidden in a good book was much easier. 




I had a beautiful, forgiving, crazy group of friends in high school.  We met each other in a small, private, Christian middle school.  We went to the same youth group, and we were there every Wednesday.  I learned how to be myself around them.  And they still loved me.  They still laughed at my jokes.  They stayed. We argued, we got jealous, we laughed, and then graduated.




College was full of being taught.  More life lessons than anything else.  #1 if you get your eye brows waxed, and the your skin is removed in the process, AND people don't notice... then they aren't as observant as you thought they were. #2 the first boy you fall in love with is not the man of your dreams. #3 follow your gut.  those instincts are there for a reason, and then run.




24 years old, I was a bride, I realize I didn't know my groom the day we got married.  We had been together a year, we knew that we were meant to be, but loving him now isn't the same as loving him then.  We've gone to battle now.  For and against each other.  Being a married couple without kids, enjoying late nights and late mornings.  




All of these events in my life, I can remember and see that I really didn't have a clue what Jesus had in store for me.  I had no CLUE how much I needed Him.  What a huge failure I am.  The core of me is rotten.  Guess what becoming a mom, will do to you?  Thrust.  you into his loving arms.  Push you over every edge of every mountain that ever existed.  No one tells you these things.  Motherhood unlocked my need for a Savior, like nothing I had ever experienced before.
 


Late sleepless nights.  Worried if you baby drank enough, peed enough, pooped enough, coughed at the right time... did he burp? Can he sleep with you or near you or only in his crib?  Maybe you should use formula?  How about breast milk?  What about vaccines... what about a good pediatrician?  What kind of diapers... and then he changes his schedule and you start all over again. 
Everyone does the wrong things.  No one can read your mind.  Your mom might call too much, people need to see pictures, you better send them to them asap! You might be working, and you feel like people can see that you are just a weeping nursing mom. Vulnerable.  Your husband is driving you crazy... you feel guilty because you just can't seem to get your footing. 




What is parenting? guilt, worry, anger, lack of patience, exhaustion, feeling worthless, failure. 


I woke up today, 4 years later.  As I was going about my normal Sunday morning... I thought, nothing,  nothing but motherhood has taught me how needy, weak, and desperate I am to hold hands with hope. I actually sat next to my husband today in church, and my children went to nursery.  That is a miracle.  I believe in hope. I have resigned myself that I will never be able to do anything on my own. 




As an adult the only thing that really matters to me about the holidays is that my children get to celebrate the magic.  They know they are loved by their family and friends.   Don't let all the frustrations, decisions, scheduling, people letting you down-  consume you.  In the large scheme of things it's just another day!  You can have a redo!  Hope will hold your hand.   

A Mommy Amen.

If my blog consisted of I'm so tired.  You'd believe me.


Who wants to read that nonsense...


Sometimes there are no silver linings. Life is more than just a juggling act.  It's a traffic jam with no direction.  A zoo, and all the animals are out of the cages, staring at you.  LIFE is just playing catch up every day.  If you deal with boogers, diarrhea, dishes, floors, toilets, diapers, bottles, boobs and half nakedness, bath time, Frozen, spilled Happy Meals, broken hearts, 16 year olds stuck in toddlers bodies, adult tv as soon as kids go to bed, and better yet YOU FALL RIGHT ASLEEP as soon as they do. AND ALL YOUR WORK responsibilities...


You are probably a working mom... 


I just wanted to promise you that there are always the worst days.  But the days will get better. You will make dear friends over beer, boots and the tiny minutes in between wiping bottoms.  You'll laugh and remember that laughter all night long.  Friendships with women are priceless.  Your husband will love you, but that man has no idea all the complicity that is going on inside your head.  When you finally say every mommy truth ALOUD and the mommy near you says AMEN. You'll have such as sense of affirmation.  You needed that, you really did. 


A Mommy Amen.  Welcome to the tribe.


There it is.  There you go.  Get the next day, and beat it down.  Win it, show it who's boss.  Like Nola says...."I'll win you!"

Thank You.

Behind this smile.
Inside my head.
Throughout my soul, I'm focusing big on the brave things I have to be thankful for.
Small precious moments of imperfection that keep me broken and needing the Rescuer.
If we focus on being grateful, we can see His blessings.
And the worry and fear becomes a part of the sidelines.
You know my favorite thing in the whole world is saying thank you.
Thank you to my special fit, my husband for leading us better than you did the day before.
Thank you to my parents for showing me love through example.
Thank you to my cheerleaders, my side kicks, my Nate & Nola.
You keep taking my breath away.
Thank you to my weirdo, misfit tribe of friends. I love you all.

 #namelycourtney #miniblog #bethankful

Story

I know when I feel really uncertain about an essay I type... it will never get published.  Sometimes thoughts are just too jumbled, and highlight and delete occurs.  Sorry, you'll never see the light of the internet!


I've been thinking so much lately about everything... Not too broad right?  It's the holidays, I want to hide.  AT the same time, I want to make it special for my kids.  I'm TIRED and school, church, friends, families, ALL have stuff to do to party for the holidays!  So guess WHAT I start to miss... behind the hustle and the bustle.  Behind the jingles and the jangles.  Behind party, party, party... is

the story.


My kids and I have been reading the Jesus Storybook Bible... and it's infiltrating my mind. 


"Because God loves us with a Never Stopping,
Never Giving Up, Unbreaking,
Always and Forever Love-
Heaven is breaking through!
He is sending us a Light from Heaven
To shine on us like the sun
To shine on those who live in darkness
And the in the shadow of death
To guide our feet into the way of peace."  The Jesus Storybook Bible

My story, my day to day, my mumbo jumbo, my nonsense is just meant to bring praise.  We each have a great story.  It has failure and triumph.  It has simple and complicated.  Your story is you.  It's in who you marry.  The ups and downs of your children being born.  When you graduated from college, got a tattoo and dumped that loser boyfriend (c'mon you know you did too).  When you stood up tall one day and proclaimed that in that moment you would not doubt yourself any longer and believe you are strong!  The way you decided you just couldn't be around those friends anymore.


It doesn't matter how many strangers look at the different colors in my Crawford party of four, and wonder if my children have the same dad.  It doesn't matter how many stares I notice and don't notice.   It doesn't matter how many times I watch my kids throw a temper tantrum at Target. Smile at a mom dealing with the same issue... Or wish I had earplugs on in the car with screaming toddlers.   Chaos, disappointment, frustration, anger are all a part of me. What matters is the grace in which, I answer questions, and love my children.  The way that I encourage my husband and open my life to curiosity.


This is my story.  This is my song.  Praising my Savior all the day long.  His never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love gives me peace. 


That brave Savior sent himself as a baby... the most vulnerable human on earth.  For all of your stories.

So cheers to the holidays!  Bring on the madness of the elves, the enchantment and the Santa.  And the curiosity of the strangers doubting the new baby king, the bravery of his parents who took one moment at a time.  Here we come Christmas!

Let Him be a reason you begin living again & being a boss is overrated, you want to change the world? Be a servant.

"But this child was a new kind of king.  Though he was the Prince of Heaven, he had become poor.  Though he was the Mighty God, he had become a helpless baby.  This King hadn't come to be the boss.  He had come to be a servant." The Jesus Storybook Bible

Heart-EE Eyes

It feels like eternity since I've really sat here and written.  I get to a point where I can't even process my own life in order to write anything down.  So, thankfully its only been a month.  Obviously I'm back at work, since I'm not writing weekly...  but goodness I miss it.  I promise I'm going to try to get some thoughts written out more regularly.  I have had some time to write, but I have been speechless.  Wordless.  Just a blank slate. 


Right now, Nate has a tummy ache and can't eat, Nola has a cold and the hubs is working from home.  Our lives are looking really differently right now.  This time of transition has been an amazing answer to prayer for us.  Team Crawford feels strong and I love it!


What has happened?  My husband, a wonderful teacher of 13 years, resigned.  Very brave thing to do.  He is currently working as a financial advisor, and is in the training process right now.  He also has been spending so much time with the kids, its a glorious thing!  They are in love! Just like that emoji with the hearty eyes... :) precious for this momma to watch. I'm so proud of my husband, just beaming.  He's studying ridiculously hard, doing something crazy new to him.  He's hanging with the kids and still working at Sears.  He is also so supportive to me in my own transition, I'm really impressed with him.  Sure is fun to change together and look to each other for answers and support. Hope is the anchor for the soul... and Jesus is hope.  My husband is a beautiful anchor for our Crawford party of four.


I have teetered between making big family decisions and guilt this month.  I was offered a teaching job at Nate and Nola's future school for a principal that comes highly recommended.  Teachers love this guy... :) I started much sooner than anticipated and the stress was overwhelming.  I'm trusting the Lord big time... the money we get to save with my 5 minute commute is to die for, and working in my own community is exciting.  I'm also thrilled to look forward to Nate's first year at school (next year).  I feel like I'm preparing myself for that transition just like any teacher-mom would. 


I have still been teaching essential oils classes, and this month was very successful.  Its a blessing to talk about oils and share them with others.  I have no idea how I've kept up with all this... some of my life has fallen by the wayside.  So, I'm focusing on getting some normal routine this week.  Normal as it comes with sick babies right now.


Friends, all this has happened right before the holidays.  Thankful for that! I typically dread all the holiday stuff, but I promise to try and be excited about the traditions coming our way.  Holidays through my littles eyes are so much more joyful!