There Are Ups... And There are Downs

It's that day. It's pretty much a living nightmare scratching, screaming, clawing, pinching, kicking, crying, hitting and wailing at you. So you put it in it's room, in the crib so it can't escape and shut the door. Then you find yourself in the closet, bathroom end of the hall or stairs crying. Crying hysterically because you don't know what to do and you have had it.

Lets face it, motherhood has so many joys and fun moments, but it also has the utmost worst moments of our lives as well. I have made a lot of mistakes in my life and I have had my share of trials, but sometimes I have to say some of the moments I have had with my child has brought me to my knees, or more like fetal position on the ground. If you say you don't have this problem in life then I am going to say one of three things to you. One, you are lying. Two, your child isn't real, its a doll, you should probably go get that checked (that or you don't have kids). Three, you must have it made in heaven, what are you doing because I want to go too?!

The last week or so has been a tough one for our family. Paul had to pull a lot of late nights because of a new product launch at work that they weren't quite prepared for, which has meant that I get to stay home alone, all day long, with Sawyer. Things were going pretty good, I was getting things done, I was cooking dinner and bringing it to Paul, I was keeping the house clean and Sawyer and I even had a little time to go to the pool. Then the dreaded downfall. It seems like when you are already having a hard enough time, things get harder. Its not like it wasn't already tough enough not having Paul around to help me with things but trying to do anything with Sawyer just seemed like an impossible task that day. Nothing was going right. Sawyer can sometimes be a stubborn and determined boy and if  his little body can't do exactly what he wants it to do he gets frustrated and throws a fit. I try to work through it, I try to calm him while trying to do what seems to be a billion other things at once. I'm on mommy-overload and my patients has run dry. It takes everything in me to not take my anger out and yell on the top of my lungs for him to stop it. I whisk him upstairs put him in the crib and shut the door. I feel like such a bad mom, I feel overwhelmed with everything that needs to get done and the fact that my child has almost broke me down to the mother I don't want to be.

I had to call Paul. He came home even though he had more to do at work and it was going to be a late night and he helped me. He got things together, cleaned up for me and took care of Sawyer all while I cried. I am so grateful for that man. I felt like I didn't have control of myself, I wanted to be a monster, and the feeling was so overwhelming I couldn't do anything else but sit and cry. My husband tells me all the time that I am too hard on myself, but it's so hard to feel fine with yourself when you give into anger or your impatience with life.

I don't want to be that person, but sometimes I am. I am human, so, so human. I can't do anything about it, and thats why motherhood is so humbling. You cannot control the child you have, you cannot pick who they will be or what they will do and at the same time you barely have a grip on what you can control about yourself. Thats why I am so grateful that there is the Savior, Jesus Christ. These are the moments where I have to stop and say "I have honestly done all I can, Please help me! Help me do what is right and calm my troubled soul!" There are a lot of things that we need as mothers to make our job bearable and easier, but there is nothing more in our lives that could help us with our job than the Savior. Though, I have to say  I was not as good as I should have been in this situation with going to the Lord for help, I know He is helping me and wants to help me with my burdens. Life is hard, but through the Savior I can have my burden made lighter and find peace in His gospel. Remember he is there for you, me, sinner, saint, child, adult, rich or poor he is there for us all.

Things are getting better. There ARE ups, and there ARE downs in life. And even though being a mom really has been one of the hardest things I've done, I would not trade it for the world. Motherhood is where I belong and I am willing to work hard and fight for it!

DIY Lace Trim

This little project is something I've been wanting to do for a while. I feel like every store I go to buy a dress the dress is never quite long enough, so I never end up buying dresses and I'm left with only maxi dresses and skirts to wear. Well the other day I found this cute blue dress at forever 21 and it wasn't quite long enough but I decided I could make it longer somehow and  bought it. Well here is the finished project!

What you will need for this project:

• Skater dress (or any dress of your choosing, skater looks nice with lace though)
• 1 1/2 - 2 inch lace trim
• thread that matches the dress and lace 
• needle 
• pins 

*I currently did not have a sewing machine when I did this but I am sure it would be easier if I did. However this project was very simple, didn't take a lot of time and still looked store bought! 

Step one: 

Measure out lace around the hem of the skirt, starting at one of the seams, and pinning it in place on the outside of the dress. Do this until you have gone all the way around and you have about an inch or two overlapping. 

Step two:

Thread needle with string that matches color of the dress and start sewing, with the dress inside out, along where the hem was made like so. If you are choosing to do this like I did without a sewing machine start out at one of the seams and make sure you tie it off when you start. Then just do a simple stitch a along the top of the lace where the hem is. This way you will not be able to see the stitch marks very noticeably on the other side. 

Step three:

Once you have made it all the way around and tied it off at the end now we need to sew the lace. Still having the dress inside out, bring the lace together so that if you lay the dress down flat the lace would be nicely folded, and not twisted, on top of each side. Like seen in the picture below. Sew along the lace and tie off on the top part wear the dress is. This can be a bit difficult as lace has holes in it if you don't have a sewing machine just try to sew along the spots that have bigger clothed areas. 

Step Four: 

Once you have sewn the lace, trim up any flyaway strings and trim the lace as close as you can to the line you just sewed in it. 

And thats all there is to it! such an easy simple DIY to make your dresses longer and cuter! 

*Style Tip. I will admit that I am a curvier girl, especially being pregnant, and so a lot of times when shopping at stores like Forever 21 (they can seriously have the best prices for a girl on a budget) I go to plus size when looking for a dress (JUST dresses). Not because I am totally huge and need bigger clothes but because a lot of times they are longer dresses and the dress just fits a little looser, which is how I like my dresses anyways, but it could easily be fixed if I wanted it a little smaller. I got this dress on sale for 11$ so it was a steal! 

*Shopping Tip. Don't buy your lace at the craft stores your the craft section. It honestly is overpriced and they usually aren't even that cute of a style lace. I bought mine on amazon for a previous project I a couple months ago and it has lasted me this long! Though I did look at a lot of other online fabric stores and they all had pretty good prices amazon just had the best for the style I was looking for, which was crocheted lace in cream. 

Clean Eating Brownies

If you're anything like me, then you love dessert. Its as plain and simple as that. You would probably rather spend most of your time in the kitchen cooking yummy desserts. However, if you're also like me, then you are also trying to eat healthier. Healthy eating equals feeling better in life generally and tempting desserts just put you in a slump. 

I feel like most of my Pinterest pins are in desserts section and just about all of them don't get made because they are way too unhealthy however they are so tempting. So, when I find a chocolate dessert recipe (I'm a chocolate lover) that is healthy I have to try it! I found this one on Pinterest called Clean Eating Freedom Brownies however when I looked at all the ingredients it called for 5 eggs! Well with my experience in cooking, which isn't a ton to call me a professional but I have a good amount to know that 5 eggs with the amount of all the other ingredients would turn out tasting super eggy. I don't know if any of you know that taste but I am not a fan of eggy tasting food that shouldn't taste like eggs. So I had to revise the recipe a little to my liking, so here it is enjoy! 

Clean Eating Brownies:

• 1/3 cup coconut flower
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 mashed avocado (optional)
• 1/3 cup coconut oil 
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup 
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup plain greek yogurt (or regular)
• 2 TBS flax meal 
• 6 TBS water
• 2 tsp vanilla 

First start off by mixing the flax meal and water together in a cup and set aside to thicken.

Preheat oven to 350.  

Mix the flour and cocoa powder in a food processor or a blender. 

Then slowly add the wet ingredients one at a time starting with the avocado if you are choosing to add it and the flax meal mixture last to make sure it has thickened is the consistency of an egg. 

After all the ingredients are mixed grease a 8x8 for thicker brownies or a 7x11 for thinner and pour mixture in. 

Bake for 35 min. 

take out and make sure they cool or when cutting them they will fall apart. 

*tips:

• I used a food processor because if you have ever used coconut flour in absorbs moister differently than wheat flour and will clump quite quickly making it hard to mix with a whisk or spoon. However if you do not have a food processor or blender just now attempting with spoon or whisk might be a bit difficult to mix well. 
• adding the avocado makes the brownies more fudgey which I love but you are more of a fan of more cake-like brownies you shouldn't put it in. 
• I served these brownies with just a scoop of ice cream on the side and no one even knew they were healthy, just a suggestion. 

They Don't Stay Babies For Long

Just about over a month ago Sawyer turned one and soon after that we found out we were having a baby girl!

As I looked through the pictures from that time a flood of different thoughts and feelings come over me. I start to remember how desperately I felt when trying to get pregnant after feeling impressed to start having a family and soon finding that it's not as easy as you think to just get pregnant. I also remembered how devastated I was when I found out I was miscarrying our first pregnancy, and the joys and fears that accompanied a crazy roller coaster of emotions when we got pregnant again with Sawyer. Now here I am pregnant with my second, a girl which I have always dreamed of having and having a whole new experience with this pregnancy. It's a constant battle of wishing I wasn't pregnant, hoping my body doesn't change too much, thrilled to have cute baby girl to dress up, scared  my body is going to look worse after this pregnancy, excited for the attention you get when you have a newborn baby and the list goes on and on.

Since starting my little family I have been humbled a lot. First, I was humbled to learn that getting pregnant and pregnancy are not easy things. When you look at the statistics there is only a tiny window of opportunity for a woman to get pregnant each month (if she has a normal cycle) and the chances are not that high, yet we do, so it makes it amazing that women can even get pregnant (human life truly is a miracle). However, then after your pregnant the fears of many things constantly rush through you afraid of miscarriage, still birth, unhealthy baby, labor, delivery and everything in between. Then you have that little bundle of joy and there is so much happiness and so much love that you didn't even know was possible to have for someone and fears will be washed away momentarily by all the hope in the world just looking at that fresh from heaven new face. Sadly, if you're as "lucky" as me it doesn't last too long and new fears and insecurities creep in with postpartum depression. Now don't get me wrong I was happy as could be to have such a wonderful child in my life, but things got hard when feelings of inadequacy found its way into me about motherhood and being good enough on many different levels.

With feelings of inadequacy, I don't just mean the everyday question's of mothers like "am I doing this right?" or "How do I know what he/she wants?" Though it does cause troubling feelings inside I'm talking about other things like "How come I don't look like 'her' after having my baby" and "How do they afford all those cute/cool baby things?" and also "How does she have time to put makeup on, I barely have time to take a shower?" Yes, I am talking about the awful thing that can happen when you come into this world of motherhood, COMPARISON. It quite honestly is hard not to do it when once we get pregnant and become mothers we seem to see people in the same exact stage as us EVERYWHERE!

This was something that was quite hard for me, it seemed like I could always see someone somewhere doing it better than me. I came into this rut where it was like once I get to this certain point in motherhood where I lost all the weight I gained, look good in a bikini, had time to make myself look glamorous, could cook a full course meal and afford all the best clothes and gadgets for my baby I would be happy. The sad thing was that was never going to happen. Nine months later I would find out I was pregnant with our second (oops!) and the weight wasn't going to be coming off any time soon being pregnant. Stretch marks were never going to go away especially after getting pregnant so soon so having the goal to look good in a bikini was unrealistic, plus the mommy tummy that happens after having a baby (yikes!). Having a busy one year old and the energy of a pregnant women well there goes having time to make myself look glamorous and cooking a full course meal. Now, my husband did get a better job but now we have so much more bills to pay for a bigger place, all the insurance and other responsibilities that come with growing up there goes the last thing of ever getting the "best".

Today, it is so easy to get wrapped up in what everyone else has and needing to be this "perfect" mother. I can't tell you how much I have struggled with this unrealistic "perfect" I have chased after, and with constantly trying to chase it, it was hard to find my self worth. I thought it would be easy to be happy being pregnant with a girl, something I had always wanted, but it wasn't because I had been so wrapped up in wanting to be this beautiful pregnant women with everything perfect, not gaining any weight, looking good in a bikini, glamorously made up, cooking perfect meals and afford all the best for my baby girl. However, I am not. It's as simple as that and that is ok because who I am is good enough. I am tired of being so wrapped up in how things need to look from the outside that I forgot about the most important part of having children and being a mother is... being a mother. I know that sounds funny, but think about it we need to forget a little more about all those temporal things that don't mean much in the long run and spend time being the best mom for our kids. Our kids aren't going to care if we aren't the skinniest woman on the block, have perfect skin, wear make up, cook a full course meal or have have the best clothes and toys (sorry I'm listing so much). Believe it or not kids are going to love you for just being their parent. I never look back at my life and wish that I had better clothes in my childhood, or ate better meals I was just happy to have what I needed and tried to enjoy life. If I felt that way and never saw any of those things important as a child then why am I worrying about it so much now?

I love that quote given in general conference sometime ago saying

"Motherhood Is Not A Hobby, It Is A Calling. You Do Not Collect Children Because You Find Them Cuter Than Stamps. It Is Not Something You Do If You Can Squeeze The Time In. It Is What God Gave You Time For." ~ Elder Neal Anderson

This bring so much perspective to me of what motherhood really is. We don't become mothers because we just have to have that cute little baby, not because of the motherhood status or because "everyone else" is doing it and we need to too. We are mothers because as a women we have been called to do it. I know that when starting a family I have fallen trap to thinking that being a mother was all about having the cutest baby/child, being the most beautiful mom, having the best stuff and pretty much being the best at everything. I now realize what motherhood really is all about. I bear the marks of having a child that I used to look at in shame, though no one else was going to see them I wished they were never there. Now I look at them and remember the sacrifice that was made to have my little Sawyer, and the sacrifice that is motherhood. Take in those moments, women, enjoy motherhood and take the time to realize the sacrifice you are making to bring that child of God into this world and the stewardship you have been given over that life, because they don't stay babies for long.