Shepherding a Child's Heart

Normally over Christmas break I do my best to catch up on extra reading that I have no time to do when classes are in session.  There are so many great books that I wanted to read, but seeing as Dan and I will be taking on a new role in our lives pretty soon, I dove into a book that Dan's friend, Paul, got us called Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp.  Obviously, I am presenting a review of this book from someone who has never read a parenting book before and has no kids and therefore has no experience in parenting, so I say that as a disclaimer (I don't know if me not being a parent will help or hurt my review of this book... but we have to start somewhere, right?)

I don't have too many criticisms of the book, mainly because I don't have experience to say that has never "worked."  However, this book did open my eyes to just how serious the task of parenting is, and because of that I am thankful it is one of the first books I read on the topic.  This is not something we are going to take lightly; there is much more that comes with getting pregnant than picking our nursery colors, which may come as a surprise to many if you spend all of your time on Pinterest. (I say that sarcastically because I have spent too much time looking at nursery things on Pinterest and our little one won't even have a nursery until October!)

So, with that being said, I'm excited to share with you *some* quotes and advice I learned from this book.  There was a lot that this book covers and I could go much more in depth than I will, but I tried to pull out main themes.  So I don't bore you too much I am going to split it up into two different days.  Today I just want to share with you the main theme of the book, and then in my next post I will share further in detail regarding other parenting tips Tripp gives.

He states:

"The central focus of child-rearing is to bring children to a sober assessment of themselves as sinners.  They must understand the mercy of God, who offered Christ as sacrifice for sinners. The focal point of your discipline and correction must be your children seeing their utter inability to do the things that God requires unless they know the help and strength of God.  Your correction must hold the standard of righteousness as high as God holds it.  God's standard is correct behavior flowing from a heart that loves God and has God's glory as the sole purpose of life.... the alternative is a lesser standard that does not require grace and does not cast them on Christ, but rather on their own resources." pg. 120

Something that I continually kept thinking throughout this whole book is how I need to be constantly in the Word and walking with God to be able to parent well.  If I am supposed to be pointing our kids toward God and showing them His grace and mercy in our everyday living, I need to start seeing that in my life now.  I need to start evaluating my heart and recognizing when I am living in self sufficiency so I can point it out in our kids life.  I need to start recognizing my sin more and asking for forgiveness immediately so I can model for our kids what that looks like.

Parenting is way more than I can handle.  I know I will never be ready for this journey, but I also know that nobody is prepared to be a parent, and nobody is a perfect parent.  Thankfully, we have a perfect God who gave us instruction in His Word on how to parent, and also gives us the grace and mercy we need to be patient, loving, and an encouragement our kids.  While I don't think this parenting thing is going to be a breeze, I do believe it's going to be one of the most fun and rewarding experiences Dan and I will have.  We're so ready ;)

More to come!

Lots of Chicago

Thanks for bearing with me on my little blogging break.  It was good for me to get away from the internet world for a little bit, but I'm also excited to be back :)

There hasn't been too much going on in our lives this past week.  It ended with me having a pretty crummy cold that has caused me to hide away in our apartment for a couple of days.  However, before that, we were able to get out quite a bit and hang out with Dan's parents when they drove through Chicago on their way back to Texas and we also had some time to head into the city.  Here has been our life through my phone these past couple days!

Dan's dad LOVES Portillos (ever since we brought him here when we first moved out here) so when they were in town we went there to eat. I forgot how amazing it was. 

And of course we had their chocolate cake.. and their chocolate cake shake.  Note: the chocolate cake shake does NOT  hold the same consistency for two days. 

Then, the next night we got Giordano's stuffed pizza. 

Next we took a little trip up to the North Shore to check out the house where Home Alone was filmed.  It was really crazy to see it in person! The street looked nothing how I thought it would, but the house looks exactly the same.

Then we drove toward the water to check out the shore.  It was SO stinkin' cold. Hence the icicles. 

It looks so pretty though, right?

Next we scouted out a view of the skyline- can you see it waaaayyy off in the distance?

Ok, so totally transitioning to our night in downtown.  There was a snowstorm that hit so we decided to forego driving and take the metra... which gave us time to eat dinner at Chipotle.  I love chips & guac.

Our church did a live recording of some worship songs at our new campus in downtown Chicago.  

We were ready to go.  I'll have more pictures from the event later.

We hadn't been on the Metra since we lived in downtown Arlington Heights! There were some really loud people sitting behind us.  I unfortunately didn't miss it.  However, I was thankful we weren't driving into the city. At rush hour. In the snow.

And my handsome husband split open his eye at basketball on Saturday so he had to wear a bandage all week :(

All the snow.  This is what Chicago winters usually look like. 

Preparing for the future...

Dan and I have made a pretty intense decision about the baby.  We have decided that we are going to give cloth diapers a try.  I'm not sure what you're thinking.  If you're currently using them you are probably thinking "Yay! They are great and save us tons of money!" If you've never used them you probably think we're nuts.  If you're like my mom who tried them 26 years ago on twins when they were made out of safety pins and a piece of cloth, you probably think I'm not going to make it one diaper change. 

Well, no matter what category you fall into, we're still planning on trying them, and hoping to stick with it!  I wish I could tell you I'm doing this because I care deeply about the environment, but that's not really the case.  I probably should care more actually, so I like to assume this is me doing my part :)  However, whatever will help us save money, we're all for it.  And we have a friend in our Bible Study who has done it with her three kids and she has definitely saved money by using them.  So, we're hoping to give it a shot and make it last. 

 And, please don't tell me these aren't adorable?!

I think they're cute... maybe my feelings will change after they're dirty.  But, right now they're clean and new and I have high expectations that cloth diapers will be amazing :)

Let's talk about Money

So, it's been a while since I've updated you on something that I have talked about a lot on this blog.  Since we moved out to here to Chicago in the summer of 2008, one of our main goals has been to pay off our undergrad loans.  Every couple months, we would put the money we saved toward our loans and bit by bit paid off our smallest 2 ones.  Then, in the summer of 2010, we ran into a small dilemma.  My position at Trinity changed from Admissions Counselor to Event Coordinator meaning the company car I had needed to be returned.  That same summer, Dan's car was quickly breaking down on us, leaving us with one option.  We had to buy two cars.  


Needless to say, there were tears involved in that decision.  I'm not too emotional, but when I realized our plans to pay off our debt in 2 years was not going to happen, I was crushed.  Since we had been putting all of our extra money toward our undergrad loans, we had to take out two more loans to buy our cars, increasing our debt.  I thought the end was never in sight.  


But, this past December, after a generous gift from Dan's parents, we were able to officially pay off the last bit of our one car loan.  So, after three and a half years and $80,000 later, we are officially debt free. :)


It is an incredible feeling to have it all paid off!  But, at the same time, I have struggled with what to do next.  Save up an emergency fund... then save for a down payment on a home?  What about our baby?  Should we start saving for their education?  How quickly I can move from being satisfied and content, to being worried and concerned about the next steps in our budget. 


While these thoughts are not bad and most likely smart, I can't help but wonder if I will ever be content.  Am I always going to be striving for more money to meet another goal?  I sure hope not. I read from Piper recently:


"Godliness with contentment is great gain.  If your godliness has freed you from the desire to be rich and has helped you be content with what you have, then your godliness is tremendously profitable (1 Timothy 4:8). Godliness that overcomes the craving for material wealth produces great spiritual wealth."


This is my prayer recently.  That I would be content and thankful, not craving for more.  And right now, I am SO thankful that our debt is done.  It's really freeing, and I'm working on trying to rest in that :)

25 Weeks

These weeks are honestly flllying by.  I cannot believe we're 25 weeks, only 15 more weeks (hopefully!)  until we meet this little one! He/ She keeps kicking away.  I think the other day the baby did a complete body shift in my belly- rolling over, flip- something pretty intense.  I don't know if I'm ever going to get sick of it, though :)

In other exciting news, running is starting to become a little more difficult- I'm getting tired quicker and finding I can't move quite as easily as I used it!  I thought for sure I would be able to run well into 30 weeks- that one woman ran a FULL marathon at 40 weeks- so clearly I can run three miles well into my third trimester.  Ha. We'll see how that goes.  I'm also getting some aches and pains in my back after I sit for a while, but other than that, I can't complain at all.

I had a moment of panic the other day when I realized we probably should start looking at some big purchase items- dressers, crib (for when the baby grows out of the bassinet), stroller, car seat, etc.  I have a feeling that it is going to be April before I know it and I'll be running around like a crazy pregnant woman trying to get everything together.  I'll keep you updated if we get any really fun things :)  We're shooting for good deals. On everything. Wish us luck :)

Here's another pregnancy shot for your viewing pleasure.  Becca took this picture of Rachael and I when we were around 20 weeks and she had just found out she was having a baby girl :) Doesn't she look so great pregnant?

Oh, and Happy Valentines Day!!  I had to slip it in here somewhere :)

Our weekend

Here's part of our weekend through my phone.

My friend Caroline got engaged!!  We went to a surprise engagement party for her :)

These were the best meatballs we ever had.  Our table scarfed them down.

Cute little take home boxes of candy :)

So festive.

We got our Miami Merger Valentine's Day card in the mail.  Always brings a smile to my face :)

My sweet friend Christina bought some new onesies for our baby!  We hadn't seen each other in at least 3 years, it was SO wonderful to catch up with her while she was in town and talk babies (she's got a baby girl due in early May)

My boss is letting us borrow their bassinet until we move out of our one bedroom.. or until our baby is too big.

Of course we spent 5 hours at Caribou on Sunday working on reading/ papers.

This was right as we got there.. spirits are still high.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Hope in Death

It's been a while since I've been this moved by a video shown at church.  This video was a much needed reminder for me to keep an eternal focus every. single. day. because we don't know how much longer we have here on this earth.  It made me think about how I would respond to the news that this man received: terminal cancer.  Although I'm sure there were moments of fear and sadness, his overriding response of finding hope in God and joy of being in heaven was so encouraging.  I would have a tissue nearby if I were you, I was thankful Becca sitting next to me at church had some in her purse :)

"I'm not down, I'm going to be with God at the worst."

God at Work: Clyde Harrison from Harvest Bible Chapel on Vimeo.

A weekend of Recipes

So this weekend I tried so many new recipes!  Pinterest has officially becoming my "go to" site when I make a grocery list.  Luckily, I was able to make some fun things since it was the Superbowl and I was asked to bring dessert to our friend's house on Saturday night.

So, Saturday afternoon I began making the first recipe: Blueberry Buttermilk Cake.

Doesn't it look SO good?  I really wanted to make blueberry muffins, but sadly I couldn't find our muffin pans :(  I have no idea where they went.  I spent almost 20 minutes looking everywhere and even recruited Dan to help (maybe he saw something I didn't...) but sadly we couldn't find them.  So, I have no idea where they are, but I know I need to either buy some new ones or look a little more because I will be making cupcakes at some point!

Anyway, this turned out really good and moist.  And I substituted 1% milk with a little whipping cream to make Buttermilk.. or in my mind I assumed that was a good substitute.  Jewel apparently doesn't sell Buttermilk; either that or it was somewhere other than in the dairy section.

Next, I made these Individual Peanut Butter Pies. 

This was another really good recipe.  It was VERY rich though.  If you're not into rich peanut butter and chocolate, this is not for you.  However, I think mine would have looked better if I had these little see- through ramekins- ours are white so they didn't look quite as cute.  I'm so used to making trifles but this was a fun change!

 Lastly, for the Superbowl Party I made these Buffalo Chicken Poppers.

We love buffalo dip, but I always make it so I wanted to try something new.  These were really easy and very good!  I didn't make the avocado dip, I was pretty sure Dan wouldn't have any of it.  So I just mixed some Red Hot Sauce with some Ranch to make a buffalo dipping sauce and I really liked that!  I would highly recommend this as an appetizer.  And they look so cute, too :)

Hopefully I'll have some new ones to post, soon!  Enjoy your weekend :)

Breakfast in Bed

I don't know if you remember my "goals" for the weekend, but I am proud to say that I killed two birds with one stone- breakfast in bed + getting my blueberry fix (recipe to come!).

Things to note for our next breakfast in bed:

1. Coffee tables directly next to our bed would be helpful

2. Trays to put things on would be REALLY helpful (we had no spills, though!)

3. Having more than 20 minutes to eat breakfast would have been ideal (Dan had a meeting to run to)

4. If I had more time I would make sausage biscuits. hmmm I love sausage biscuits. 

5. I really want to do this again :)

aww don't you love our adorable mugs?! Cheesy. I know.

haha this lamb for the baby was sitting on the floor next to me so I told Dan to take a picture of it. He's a good sport.

Yep. all done.

Date night ... with an orange tint

Last week Dan planned a date night for us and it was SO sweet.  Our original plans fell through (because our movie wasn't playing in that theater!) but after Dan told me his second plan (Cheesecake Factory) I wasn't too disappointed!

And because the Cheesecake Factory has amazing lighting, our pictures were a *little* orange.

Hello Coconut Creme Cheesecake

Dan got the Toasted Coconut + Chocolate Milkshake.  It was AMAZING. I was a little nervous- who doesn't get a cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory?!  But, this did not disappoint.

ha Dan looks so silly here.

Taking a break from demolishing the cheesecake 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we headed off to see our movie... Overall, I'd recommend you go see it. It was intense and Liam was obviously in his element.  However, the underlying theme throughout the whole movie was a little disappointing.  I can't say much more- you should just go see it :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I'm hoping this weekend looks like...

We have a couple things planned this weekend, but nothing that should make us too busy, which is really nice :)  I am looking forward to a restful, quiet weekend.

Here are some fun things that I have found on Pinterest that I hope to do soon.. if not this weekend:

Breakfast in bed- I have never done this!  Maybe it's because our down comforter is white... it's worth the risk though, right?

Read :)  Not just for a half an hour.  But for half a day. Where does the time go?

Make eggs 

Organize

I have really been craving blueberries lately.. so these muffins look a-mazing.

Since I'm not drinking as much coffee, finding some good caffeine free tea this winter sounds really good

get my camera out more

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!