Happy Home Fairy

I have some crazy news to share today!

Guess what I am doing in the photo above????

Signing a contract!!!

That’s right, I am going back to teaching!

The preschool where the Happy Buddy attends had an opening for a PreK-2, two-day-a-week teaching position.  After much prayer and counsel-seeking, the Happy Hubs and I feel it is just the right fit for our Happy Home.

While I have a TON of peace about it, I am TERRIFIED.

Ten 2-year-olds?!

Phew, I know what my experience with ONE 2-year-old was like and boy, do I feel like taking a nap already.

On the other hand, I already have every bulletin board and craft project planned out for the entire 2013-14 school year.

Ha!

More importantly, I am just so excited to love on those precious babies – show them Jesus every single day – and maybe, just maybe help them learn how to use a potty.

So, dear readers, any PreK-2 teachers out there?

This former 2nd-grade-teacher could use your advice!

-Julie

*I may or may not have had the Happy Hubby retake that photo above 6,000 times because he kept capturing a huge wad of my arm chub. #keepin’itreal*

I never knew how hard it would be to actually get to church once I had babies.

When I was pregnant with the Happy Buddy I had visions of him being a baby in my arms, the 2 of us swaying together while we worshiped in the front pew and then he would sleep peacefully through the sermon.

Reality Check! – We make it through the first song okay, then lady behind me taps my shoulder to inform me that baby has projectile puked all over my shoulder and carpet.  I run to the cry room where he proceeds to fight sleep, have a poop explosion (and I have forgotten to pack an extra change of clothes) and refuse to nurse under a cover.

There have been (still are) plenty of Sundays where I am That Mom with the loud, crying baby during the reflective, quiet times of prayer (I like to think that my babies are being moved by the Spirit.  Ha!).

Some of you might ask what about the nursery?

Well… my boys have both struggled a bit with separation anxiety as babies - with the added dynamic that I’m just not as comfortable yet exposing the Happy Baby to other children while his little immune system is still so fragile.

I’ll never forget one time this precious lady who was serving in the nursery came out to find me during the service to assure me that they were okay with it, but was I okay with the fact that the Happy Buddy hadn’t stopped screaming since I left?

I found myself wondering – why do I bother going to church at all?

Have you ever felt that way???

I’ve come to realize, friends, that all the hassle – the missed naps, the 18,000 bags you have to bring, the fussing, the hiding out in the cry room, the half-heard sermons, the fear that everyone thinks you’re a bad mom because your baby is hollering louder than the worship band, the several times I actually fell asleep in the cry room because I was so exhausted from being up all night with a baby, the terrible hair style because I didn’t have time to fix myself in the circus act of getting everyone out the door…

I’ve come to realize that it’s not about me.

It’s not about what I get out of it or what it does to my kids’ schedules or even all the hoop-de-la it takes to even get there.

It’s about doing it for Him.

Our going to church is an act of worship.

Whether we feel like it or not, we go because it brings Him pleasure.

He sees us sitting in the cry room alone with our fussing babies.

He sees us and He loves that we came.

He loves that we set aside our desire to keep our babies on a schedule or our feathers unruffled for one day out of the week so that we could trust that He would take care of everything – even the poop explosions and distracted feeding sessions.

And you know what else?  In the overflow of that sacrifice, our children see that attending church is important.

Not some legalistic thing we do to earn God’s favor, but as we obey to go, we are blessed by fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ as well as the filling of His Spirit.

Even if it’s in between diaper changes and chasing kids from going up on the stage after the service, seeing my church family is always an encouragement.

And in those moments in the back of the sanctuary or cry room, I’ve often imagined Jesus sitting there with me, whispering to my tired self that He loves me.  That I don’t need to hear a full sermon to be filled with the enormity of that simple truth.

Don’t get me wrong, I CAN’T WAIT until I can sit through services uninterrupted, but for now, in this season with the littles, I sacrifice the comfort and ease of routines and home because I know that going to church brings Him glory.

With that said…

There are just some days when your Happy Buddies will be sick and you simply can’t go to church.

Like today.  Both the boys have colds so we knew our brothers and sisters in Christ wouldn’t want our snot all over them.

So we had a little church service in the Happy Baby’s room.

We gathered with the congregation.

The Happy Buddy led us in worship.

And read to us from God’s Word.

*Note – The Happy Buddy had been having a rough morning before this and I was having to correct his behavior quite a bit… Should I find it concerning that he chose to read to us the story about Jesus ‘running away’ from his family??

We had a time of prayer.

And more worship.

The Happy Baby joined in our praise time with the tambourine.

Apparently our church is a touch charismatic.

We even served refreshments at the end.

It was a great service (and not just because we were all rockin’ in our pajamas)!

When it was over and we were enjoying our cookies and tea, I asked the Happy Buddy why we didn’t sing his all-time favorite worship song.

He looked at me very seriously and said, “Oh Mommy, we’re doing that song in the second service.”

Happy Church-ing!

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” Romans 12:1

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When I was a kid it felt like an ETERNITY until 5 pm when my favorite show Saved By The Bell would come on.

Car rides longer than 10 minutes were excruciating.

And waiting for Christmas to come was like waiting for NASA to figure out how to send people to Mars.

I often asked my parents, “Are we there yet?  How much longer?  How many more days????”

I see it happening with the Happy Buddy now…  He asks me every night before bed how many hours it will take until morning.  The back of my chair has permanent footprints from his are-we-there-yet-protests.  I wonder a lot if we will even survive that hour until I get dinner on the table.

And don’t even get me started on how often we talk about how many days until his next birthday, beginning day 1 after birthday.

Waiting.

We don’t like to wait, do we?

We freak out now when our internet takes longer than a millisecond to load a page.

We want diets that will melt the pounds instantly.

Hello instant coffee and the microwave.

And then what about the waiting for things that are bigger than a loading YouTube video or for your skinny jeans to fit again?

Like waiting for your wedding day.

I’ll never forget how difficult those 370-something days after our engagement were.

The Happy Hubby and I were desperately trying to make it to our wedding day keeping the marriage bed pure and LET ME JUST TELL YOU – being two young lovebirds – this was no easy task.

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Then there were the 5 years of waiting for a baby.

The months pass by pretty slowly when you’re hit with a steady stream of one-lined pregnancy tests.

Most recently was the waiting we endured before finally getting to take the Happy Baby home from the hospital.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this waiting because the Happy Baby was born last year on the Tuesday during the week before Easter.

When he was admitted to the NICU, the Happy Hubby and I were told he’d get better in a few days.

We set our hearts on taking that precious little bundle home before Easter Sunday.

Then the weekend hit and I remember praying my heart out that we’d have a miraculous healing and get to take him home on Resurrection Day itself.

I thought, “Now wouldn’t that be fairy tale-ish?”

But then that didn’t happen.  And instead we were loading him into an ambulance to have him transferred to a different hospital where we began our journey of one of the toughest waits of my life.

Here’s the thing.

We don’t like waiting because waiting is hard.

It is hard to keep your hands off your hot fiancé.

It is hard to attend 8 thousand baby showers and have to command your spirit to be happy for your easily pregnant friends when you wonder if you will ever get to open a Diaper Genie of your own.

It is hard to have to put away the special Moses basket you had ready next to your bed for the newborn who longer fits in it because he has been in the hospital for so long.

God, however, has a plan for our waiting.

In fact, He delights in our waiting.

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All you have to do is look at the people in God’s Word.  You’ll find that most of them had to endure some pretty intense seasons of waiting.

First, there’s Noah.  He had to wait many years while building the boat and then the 40 days while on the boat (and we should remember that he didn’t know it was going to be 40 days… Imagine what he must have felt like day after day trapped on that boat with all those stinky animals!).

Then there’s Abraham.  He was 100 years old before he got to be a dad.

Jacob had to work for Laban for a number of years before getting to marry his dream girl, Rachel.

Speaking of Rachel, she experienced a long season of barrenness while her sister, Leah, Fertile Myrtle-d her way through life.

Joseph waited in prison under a false accusation for over 2 years.

The Israelites were in bondage in Egypt for hundreds of years.

David was anointed to be king as a young boy of about 12-15 years old, but he didn’t actually become the king until he was 30, with those years of waiting filled with all kinds of drama between him and King Saul.

The list goes on!

But why, you might ask?  Why does God make His people have seasons of waiting?

I asked God this question a lot while waiting for the Happy Baby to come home.

I even questioned His goodness because that kind of waiting seemed torturous and, at times, unbearable.

And here is what He showed me about waiting.

*Waiting makes you depend on God.*

Every single day of the Happy Baby’s hospitalization, I was in communion with the Lord.

I cried out to Him.  I searched His Word for hope and comfort.  I spent a lot of time listening to worship music.

I had no other choice, really, because if I didn’t do these things, I was having panic attacks and recurring bladder and mastitis infections.

Some of David’s most beautiful and heartfelt Psalms were penned from caves where he was hidden away from the crazed King Saul – waiting for deliverance.

A dear friend of mine always reminded me when I would call her crying about the Happy Baby, “This is just a season, Julie.  It won’t last forever.”

And you know what?  She was right.

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*Waiting ends at some point.*

We did eventually break free from the hospital.

Noah eventually got off the boat.

Abraham and Sarah had Isaac.

Jacob married Rachel.

Rachel gave birth to Joseph.

Joseph was freed from prison and given a pretty awesome promotion.

The Israelites got out of Egypt.

David eventually became king…

I tell you this because it is hope for the weary, waiting soul.

One day you will be delivered.

We must remember, however, that sometimes our deliverance is not exactly as we dreamed… Like we were delivered from the hospital, but it was after almost 100 days and the Happy Baby had a feeding tube along with a long list of what-ifs concerning his health.

*Waiting helps us realize that we are not in control – and that is a good thing.*

We can look back now and reflect on how He grew us and stretched us as His children through the waiting.

We learned to lean on Him in the waiting.  We learned to trust in His perfect plans and unfailing love.

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And because of that love we can see how His deliverance from our waiting (although having a feeding tube wasn’t our favorite) – it was exactly what we needed, when we needed it.

Although he only had to wait 3 days in the belly of the fish for his deliverance (I think any longer than that would have made any other person in his situation go a little nuts!), Jonah was delivered when he surrendered completely to God’s calling for his life.

He learned that God’s way was better.

When Jesus waited for them to take him away to be crucified, he knelt before the Father and cried out, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

This is the reason we wait.

*Waiting is about surrender.*

I’ve noticed that when things in my life are going easy, my flesh is more tempted to cast God aside, skip reading His Word, do my own thing.

When things are easy I am less apt to kneel at His feet, arms open, asking Him to take it all.

I believe this is what it means when we hear, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4

Not that God is some genie that will make all our waiting requests come true with a magic poof, but that when we are fully surrendered to trusting in His plans for our life, the desires of our heart become more about wanting what pleases Him instead of what pleases ourselves.

Just a few verses later we are reminded to, “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him…” Psalm 37:7

Now we get to wait for His second return.

And we do so with hope.

We will survive (and even thrive in) the waits of this world because we know that we are waiting for something far better than anything the waits of this world have to offer.

Hang in there, precious, waiting Sister.

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He is coming.

- Julie

“Our willingness to wait reveals the value we place on the object we are waiting for.”  Charles Stanley

You know they say to be prepared for at least one thing to go wrong on your wedding day.

A late floral delivery, a snagged pantyhose, or a flower girl gone rogue.

But usually they don’t say that fire will be involved.

One of my favorite bridal shower gifts was this -

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The Happy Hubby and I were engaged for well over a year, so you can bet I couldn’t wait to finally get the chance to light this baby once our wedding day arrived.

I set it on the dresser in my room and enjoyed its sweet fragrance while I bustled around getting dressed (actually, my maid of honor was yelling at me to get dressed while I sat on the floor in my pantyhose and a blue oxford eating a bagel.  Priorities.).

I finally finished dressing and putting my makeup on about the same time the photographer arrived.

He immediately started snapping pictures and asked if I could ‘reenact’ my getting ready process.

I’d never had someone follow me around actually wanting to take photos of me, so I gladly allowed him the pleasure of documenting the ever-important lipstick application.

I hammed it up – giggling like a teenager and sending coy smiles in the direction of the flash.

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But as I leaned over the dresser I sniffed something a little bit more alarming than anything Yankee Candle has ever sold in their stores.

I looked down just in time to see that my sacred candle had burned a special little Wedding Day hole in my veil!

I froze.

My first thought was to cry.

I mean, I loved that veil!  So pretty with tiny sparkly rhinestones all over.

My second thought was, “Holy cow, holy cow thank you, Lord that my whole highly flammable hair-sprayed head didn’t go up in flames.”

I mean, I could have been walking down the aisle looking like something on the menu at Char Hut.

My third thought was, “That’s kind of funny.”

And I threw my head back (in the opposite direction of the candle this time) and laughed.

Really, I didn’t go all bridezilla.

You see, the Happy Hubby’s and my union was such a long-anticipated, joy-filled, prayed-over occasion that nothing, not even permanent burn marks in my white headpiece, was going to rob me of the excitement I felt in soon becoming my man’s forever lady!

I was itching to tell the Happy Hubby about it (as he thinks I am the master of living in a state of oblivion), but we had promised not to have any contact with one another until we saw each other coming down the aisle.

So you can bet that the first thing out of my mouth as the Mrs. Happy Hubby was pertaining to my fried veil.

He laughed about it, too.

Guess that’s why we make the perfect ‘match.’

Do you have any Wedding Day Disaster stories to tell?

Happy Burning Your Wedding Veil-ing!

Last night some serious competition went down over at the Parents Blog Awards Facebook page!

At around 11 pm, things looked like this - 

And then the gal at 38% (who is lovely and wonderful and totally deserving of the award – you can check out her site HERE) sent out a Facebook blast that bumped her up to 40% by the time midnight rolled around.

I have to admit, I felt disappointed.

The Happy Hubby picked up on my mood (although I think the big mopey face I was wearing wasn’t too hard to miss!).

He wrapped his arms around me, gave me the sweetest hug and told me that I was a winner.

Maybe not of a Parents Magazine Blog Awards, but in his eyes, I was a winner.

And then we began to brainstorm a list of all the other ways this Blog Awards competition has proven that I am a winner…

I am a winner because my husband opened a Facebook account just so that he could vote for me.

I am a winner because my mom has literally told every single person she has come in contact with over the last 2 weeks (I am not even kidding about this – she told restaurant servers, grocery clerks, etc.) to vote for me.

I am a winner because my mom and dad – while out to dinner celebrating their 34th wedding anniversary, mind you – were texting and calling everyone in their address books to solicit votes for their crazy fairy daughter.

I am a winner because while scrolling through friends’ Facebook pages I saw their little shared voting boxes saying they had voted for me.

I am a winner because my church sent out an email to everyone in the congregation just to ask for votes for me!

I am a winner because when I drove into our church parking lot for worship Sunday morning, two of the deacons (men, mind you!) that were helping park cars greeted me with, “You’ve got our votes!”

I am a winner because my friend, Trisha, over at 24/7 Moms, dedicated a whole blog post on her incredible site to trying to win the Fairy more votes.

I am a winner because many of you wrote to me that you snuck into your husbands’ Facebook accounts just so you could vote a second time!  I can’t believe you’d even take the time to do that!

I am a winner because every day (well not every day.  Especially not every day last week when everyone in our Happy Home – including me! – got dreadfully sick and we were all sitting on the couch like blobs coughing and watching Pokoyo episodes all day long), but most days I get to create new blog posts to encourage you sweet mommies to have Happy Homes (I love this!).

I am a winner because after thanking my brother-in-law via text for all the campaigning he was doing on my behalf to all the people in his world, he wrote back, “We love helping you.  Your blog is great.  You have let the light of our Savior shine through your posts – both in creativity and love.  Win or not, you are a blessing to so many people!  Rest in God’s favor tonight.  HE voted for you through His Son!”

Now THAT was the greatest reminder of all.

Because even if I didn’t have an amazing husband, supportive parents, family, friends, and a church that believes in me and what I feel called to do – even if I didn’t have incredible Facebook friends or email subscribers or awesome Happy Home Fairy community or absolutely NO votes in the Parents Blog Awards, I’d still have His vote.

And His vote is the one that counts.

His vote for me (and YOU) is cast on a daily basis with these precious words:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

The hope that we have in Christ is better than any earthly prizes or recognition gained on earth.

We never EVER have to feel like losers, my friends, because God’s vote for us is everlasting.

“I have loved you with an everlasting love…” Jeremiah 31:3

So today I pray that each of YOU will feel like winners as you go about your business (and business that doesn’t involve voting anymore!  Woohoo!).

You are a winner because the Lord says so.

And although my word would never be greater than His, the Happy Home Fairy says you are a winner too.

You are a winner because you have blessed me with your dedication to loving and serving and building your Happy Homes.  YOU are the reason this site exists!!!

Pretend I am giving you all blue ribbons and trophies right now.

Well, actually, since I am a fairy I would probably hand out sparkly magic wands.

Love you TONS and TONS and thanks again for EVERYTHING.

- Julie, Winner