What would my sign say?...

So I recently talked about how nice it would be to just wear a sign that says everything about you so no one would have to assume.  Also, you wouldn't have to wonder if someone thought something of you that is not true.

Well, if anyone wore a sign, there would be a LOT of things to say, since we're people of course, and we have many thoughts, feelings and beliefs.  But let me go ahead and try to put some things together that I think I would want people to know...

• I am a sinner.  I am allllways doing something that is far less than perfect and that offends God or goes against what he would desire for me.
• I try to live my life according to God's word, and unfortunately this often is perceived as self-righteous and an "I'm better than you" attitude, but I don't think that at all and I try not to allow others to think I think that!  I am trying to live my life how God commands us because I believe God is good, and what he has written is for my own good.
• The only thing that makes me righteous is Jesus, that by living a perfect life, dying on the cross, and raising again, he took the punishment I deserve from said disobedience to God, and I received his righteousness.
• I don't believe anyone can be righteous apart from Christ (which means no one is "good" including myself, because of what we do, say or how we treat others)
• I also think because Christ was perfect, died for the sins of the world, and rose again, and he is the only person that can make anyone righteous, I believe he is the only way to be reconciled with God the father.
• I don't share the gospel enough with others. (You may be thankful for this because you think it's annoying when a Christian shares his or her faith with you, but I remember watching a video of a famous atheist who said that if someone believes that every person needs to be saved from the wrath of God, and they know the way to salvation, Jesus Christ, then why are they not sharing their faith?  That it is selfish to keep it from others.  Wow! That's impacting and will challenge anyone to share his or her faith).
• Christianity is the one way of life that doesn't require you to "work" your way to God.  Jesus has joyfully already done that for you.  All you have to do is trust his work is sufficient and daily repent from your own sinful way of life and instead live to bring God glory.
• I don't think I am better than anyone else because of what I believe.  Like I already said, I am made righteous not because of me, but because of Christ.
• I believe there are certain passages in scripture that have cultural expression and eternal truth.  If, after research, I am unsure of whether the passage only relates to that culture in time or if is eternal truth, I will probably err on the conservative side.
• I fail. All. The. Time.  My goal is to love God and others unconditionally, but I fail daily, which makes me look like a hypocrite...
• I am super self-conscious.  I get so sad when I think someone doesn't like me.  It's embarrassing, selfish and totally unnecessary, really.  And it's this trait that often keeps me from being myself around others.  You can believe me that if I ever hurt your feelings, it is definitely not out of malicious intent.  It's an accident, and I'd want you to tell me so I can apologize and make things right with you. (This was not so true in my high school/early college years, so I am sorry.  These people know who they are and I think I've already personally apologized to them... oops :/  )

Wow, so I guess really what my sign would do is mostly share the gospel.  That was totally unintentional, but I guess when you see that the gospel and a life that failingly tries to live out God's word, you get a lot better look at my life and hopefully a lot less assumptions... who knows...

Now I just need to get all of this tatood on my forehead.

I wish I could wear a sign...

I was thinking about this today with all the Amendment One stuff that just happened in North Carolina. It was interesting that the amendment got passed since about 95% of the signs I saw in yards were "Vote Against" signs. Where were all these closet conservatives?

In the weeks leading up to the vote I asked myself multiple times, "If we had a house, would I put up a sign?" From the feelings of anxiety I got right after I asked myself that question, I knew my answer, "No."

Why is that? What is the problem? Am I ashamed of what I believe in? No... Am I not fully confident in what I believe in? No... (I may not be prepared to have a debate with someone, but I am definitely confident in truth).

This is the problem:

When you believe ONE thing, people assume ALL things about you.

That's why I wish I could just wear a sign that showed all my cards in life. That way, when you find out one thing about me, you can just read the sign I'm wearing that tells you all the other things about me. You still may not agree with anything I believe or do, but at least there wouldn't be all this awkward tension where you're thinking or wondering "X" about me, and I'm wondering, "Does she now think 'Y' about me?!" And now either you are going to avoid me because you hate me, or I am going to avoid you because I think you hate me...

It's terrible, really... These unspoken assumptions, or unspoken fear of assumptions, has caused me tension in so many relationships!

Maybe it's narcissistic to think like this, but am I the only one that has this problem?

I think I will try to lay out a lot of my cards on the next blog. Why not just go ahead and create the proverbial sign?...

Hello Miss Addison!

Well, I am super behind in blogging.  It's hard to do when I have to pull out my dying laptop every time and also pull out the portable wireless mouse and it's USB thing since my laptop's mouse in broken.  It's one of the many "frictions," Kyle would say, that discourages me from blogging.

So Addison is here, born on January 24, 2012 at 10:08pm.  She weighed 7 lbs 12oz, and was 19 3/4 inches long.

7lbs 12.6oz; 19 3/4 in long

Because I have taken so long to post anything, I will just summarize all of my observations of Addison below...

Overall, she is a very happy baby...

but she does get fussy at times!

She loves to be swaddled

This little Houdini could always work
her way out of a swaddle

Until the "Swaddle Me"...

...which saved us

Swaddled for the night

She has always been so alert, even at 4 days old!

So alert!

...and again

She hated her first couple of baths,
 until we learned that she could handle
the water being a little warmer (oops!)

She always looks adorable wrapped
in her bath towel

She makes some goofy faces

Another goofy face (see the reindeer?)

She loves working those eyebrows

After she eats, she is out!

Even though she still has trouble finding it,
it's clear she is a thumb-sucker

She loves sleeping on her stomach,
but she hates tummy time

She seems to sneeze a lot

She's a cute yawner

An early morning yawn

And my favorite, she has an adorable smile

    

Oh, and...

She just started putting weight on her legs
this past week! Yay! She can actually stand now
for a pretty long time! (about 10 seconds, maybe...)

She has been SUCH a blessing and joy to us!  I absolutely love this little girl, and I am trying my best to treasure every moment with her.

Well, until next time,

Peace out!

Cloth Wipes

I think I am in the majority when I am changing a baby's diaper...

This is my diaper-changing process:
- Lift baby's legs
- Wipe the baby
- Put the wipe in the dirty diaper
- Roll up the dirty diaper
- Throw dirty diaper in bin

It is the most natural thing to put the dirty wipe in the dirty diaper.  Well, what do you do if you are cloth diapering?  Do you wipe baby, then look around for the trash while you are holding the dirty wipe in your fingers extending your arm away from you as far as possible, then go back to baby to wipe again and do the whole thing over?

Why not just cloth wipe too!?  You get to keep the same process of just wipe and put it in the diaper, then wipe again, and so on.  You are doing the load of laundry for the diapers anyway, so now everything will just go in the same place.  I love it!

I did some research (this wasn't my original idea) and decided that I wanted to use flannel receiving blankets to make the wipes.  Thankfully someone from work gave me about 7 old ones!

Here's what I did...

- I cut the blankets up into 8.5in x 8.5in squares -

- I chose which fabrics to put together (I tried doing a design side and colored side) -

- I put the right sides of the 2 pieces facing together (it looks like it's inside out) and sewed a 1/4 in seam almost all the way around.  You want to leave about 4 inches or so, so you can then pull all the fabric through the little hole so it's right-side out (not inside out) -

Now we are here: 

There is a little hole where you had to pull the fabric
through to make it look like this

Tuck that hole in so you have a clean seam

Press all of your sides down to
make sewing cleaner

Then sew around the entire wipe (all 4 edges)
to make it look nice

There you have it, a stack of cloth wipes!

Now you fold them in half and put them in
your wipe warmer, along with the wipe solution
(water, baby wash, baby oil)

If you fold them a certain way, you can even use this little guy.
They will pull out like tissues do out of a box!

Ta Da!

Christmas Card Display

Well this is a little late, but I still wanted to share the idea because I loved it so much.  I love getting Christmas cards from friends and family.  I want to save them and look at them, but they never have a nice place to go.

One of my favorite blogs, or potentially my favorite, is iheartorganizing.  She had a post on how to organize your Christmas cards.  And along with just about everything else she does, I loved it!  It was so easy too!

I bought a big snowflake from somewhere, Walmart maybe, and some thick red ribbon.  Hot glued them together.  Put that on a 3M strip on our pantry door and used tape to stick the cards on the ribbon, and VOILA!

We will do this every Christmas :)

Not-so-artsy-but-practical picture of
what it looks like

Kate's Christmas Present

It is ridiculous how much Kate does for me!  She is always writing me letters and sending me cards and gifts in the mail.  It's very overwhelming because I can't keep up with being as good of a friend to her as she is to me.

So for Christmas I wanted to make her something myself.  I saw a really cute DIY toiletry bag tutorial on this Skip to my Lou website.  I had already been at Hobby Lobby that week and saw a fabric that I thought she would like, so I went back and grabbed it, along with a PUL fabric for the inside (this makes it sort of water-proofy.)

I followed the instructions (the best I could) and came out with this:

That's a little loofa in there.  I was going to pack it with
bath stuff but I decided to go with some other goodies

The picture actually makes it look nicer than it really is.  I wrote Kate a little Christmas card with it and explained to her not  to unzip it all the way because the zipper kind of gets stuck.  Even when I pin 2 fabrics together, I still struggle to keep them in line.  This bag is all sorts of crooked, but it comes from the heart!

Rice Bag

Well, the big day of Addison's arrival is any day now (due January 16!), and along with the coming of a child is LABOR!  What woman doesn't want to be as most prepared as possible.  Our hospital bags are packed, an email is ready to be sent out to let people know it's time, and phone calls to parents are ready to be made.

I have received numerous pieces of advice, all of which I am very grateful, and a few of those tips were around back labor.  If you are having back labor, one possible mode of pain relief is heat, so I made a rice bag!

A rice (or sometimes corn or beans) bag can be put in the microwave for a minute or two and then placed anywhere for pain relief.  Or you could just put it at the foot of your bed at night to keep your toes warm until you fall asleep.  I guess there are multiple things you could do with it...

Be careful though, there are certain things that are better to be put in the bag to keep it from moistening up when it's heated, and eventually mildewing... or even worse, getting maggots... (thanks for the warning mom!)

My Rice Bag

Thanks Mom!

Well, since my mom is my number one fan and the only person I know will read my blog (other than Kyle), I just want to say THANK YOU for my Sewing Machine!  I have done so many things with it already!

My Christmas present from Mom

My mom :)

Oh you know what, I want to thank my wonderful husband too!  Thanks to his Christmas gift, I actually have a very cute place to store my machine - a sewing machine bag!  Who knew?  THANK YOU Kyle!

My Christmas Present from Kyle

Kyle (he doesn't like this picture but I love it)