34

I turned 34 back in April.


Had you asked me in high school I think I had a bit of the sheltered American dream at the forefront of my head. I would be happily married (which I am), with 2 kids, both my husband and I working an 8:00 to 5:00 job with our weekends free, and a white picket fence around our house.

The reality is I was clueless to the world around me.
Unaware of the realities that some people live within.

34 brings me to a world I never imagined.

In any given week I am responsible to keep 100 finger and toe nails trimmed (plus my own 20).
I change more diapers than I ever imagined, 3 kids in diapers full time and 1 while while she sleeps.
5 kids call me various forms of the name "mom." Our county calls me weekly asking if there is any way we could take any more.

3 of those kids grew in another woman's womb.
2 transformed my body in ways I never imagined. My body is not what I fathomed, growing humans is an experience like I never imagined.
We drive a 12 passenger van, which is both the most obnoxious and marvelous thing ever.
My high school dreams never even began to fathom my life now.

My dream of an 8:00-5:00 job is everything but that. God has an ironic sense of humor in calling me a pastor. The call to Pastor takes me places I never imagined. I stand on the edge of heaven while people take their last breath, I am amongst the first people call when a new baby is born. In the middle of tragedy and moments of great hope I am called to walk alongside people, to remind them of the deep truths that God promises to us all. In general I have more questions than I do answers. This year along I have walked the sacred halls of our high school as our youth have been forced to wrestle with five suicide deaths, two students, and three parents. It is sacred ground. My summers are spent gallivanting from mission trips to summer camp to vacation bible serve for work.

I continue to love to travel and traveling and with my family is even better. We have a dear set of friends the Carmacks, who used to live near us, who have become our constant travel companions. We've just returned from Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. If your interested in our travel adventures follow along on instagram on thevillagetravels. If given the option I'd be at Walt Disney World monthly. Aside from WDW, I enjoy traveling to our National Parks, and pretty much anywhere we can go. Traveling with tiny humans is a whole new ball of wax, I remember back the summer I spent in Europe with just a backpack. Now packing is a small science and ensuring we have the right blankets, sleeping buddies, and pacifiers is vital, not to forget the snacks, the right clothes, the movies for the van, the extra clothes just in case, the sound machines, the diapers, wipes, the list goes on and on.

If I manage to have time where I am not: folding the never ending mountain of laundry, cleaning the house, paying bills, packing bags for the next day, cooking, or doing other obnoxious adult type things I like to fill my time: crocheting, taking pictures, shutterflying, watching movies, hiking, reading, pintresting, baking, or talking on the phone (my friends all live way too far away) and miscellaneous projects around the house. This space, I miss it, I think I am going to attempt to come back here from time to time, we will see how often that happens, but I am going to make an effort to come here and write.

My life calls me all sorts of things: wife, daughter, sister, mother, foster mother, pastor, crocheter, Minnesotan (despite my desire to be a South Dakotan), and neighbor to name a few. This is my 34.

Real Mom Confessions

I am back linking up with Girl with Blog for her Real Mom Confessions.
I LOVE this series and while I have fallen silent in the last few months - I faithfully looked forward to it and gave thanks for the mom's who posted each week. Summer for me at work, even with the best preparation and planning, is beautiful chaos and I am in survival mode moving from one thing to the next and I am never home, traveling from mission trip to mission trip to Thursday service days, to covering for my colleague while he is on much deserved vacation to who knows what - while it is all wonderfulness it makes life even crazier than normal.

1. This week I FINALLY have begin to get a grasp on cleaning our house and getting caught up on the laundry - we had been functioning in as needed basis at best meaning: some days while up feeding the one year old in the middle of the night I would throw in an overfull load of laundry {washing everything on cold so it could all go in together} that would get us through the next few days and ignoring the mountain ranges of dirty clothes that had magically appeared.
2. I have learned the joy of the bribe with my beloved one year old. I happily throw her in her crib with the ipad playing a Mickey Mouse Club House episode so I can savor my shower and not have a little face screaming and peeking in the shower - sometimes this momma just needs fifteen minutes to shower, get dressed, and breathe a little.
3. Last night for dinner we had cereal. Marc, Lucy, and I all had different types because we were out of any big bags of cereal and down to the bottom of the bags and it was the good semi stale stuff that had been sitting in the cupboard for only God knows how long. My husband offered to stop at the grocery store on the way home from work today if I assembled a list.
4. Lucy is working on getting two teeth - they will be the death of me. Seriously- note the picture above - she has the two middle bottom teeth and the one is coming in next to it and then the top middle right one is also working on making it's appearance - this sweet face goes from pure joy to angry at the world in mach speed and these two teeth {or at least that's what I am blaming it on} has taken my horrible sleep to a whole new level of crappy sleeping - which leads me to #5
5. I keep trying to get back in shape while balancing sleepless nights and the chaos of life. I finally this past week decided to let it go - embrace the late night sanity chocolate chip cookies and know some day my little will be big, sleeping through the night, and I will have the sanity to worry about eating well, working out regularly, and being back in shape. I am doing what I can and taking that for what it is - I refuse to stress out over this any longer. I am rejoicing in the cold weather, embracing my sweatpants and dealing with it.

Any confessions for you this week?

Can you relate to any of this?

Real Mom Confessions

I am linking up with Anna at Girl with Blog for Real Mom Confessions.

I have dreams, lots of dreams, I am a
goal setter through and through. There was a day in which I wanted to do things such as: qualify and run the Boston Marathon (I now am MORE than content running half marathons and finishing solidly midpack), hike the entire Appalachian trail, backpack through South Africa, get a doctorate degree amidst lots and lots of other things. It isn't that I have given up on my dreams, they are just always in transition- always changing and morphing into something else - currently - my dreams include sleeping through the night, getting a shower, and having a clean house.
This week's real mom confessions all fall around superwoman.






Several things happened:

• I got dessert made for a church potluck WHILE Lucy was awake. Okay seriously this doesn't seem like that big of a thing while I am typing it however, IT SERIOUSLY felt like I had just climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. #victory - now that she is moving around it seems like I some how get even less done than ever before because now instead of being able to lay her on the blanket where she would happily remain until I took her off said blanket - she is all over - into everything and anything 
• At one point last week the ONLY DIRTY CLOTHES in my house were the ones on our bodies - I didn't even know that was humanly possible. Granted Lucy was happily entertained playing in the sorted laundry and we ate cereal for dinner that night - but the laundry was done (note: I am mentioning nothing about getting it put away)
• 3 times this past week I managed to get up and out of bed thirty minutes prior to Lucy - usually when I attempt this she some how has psychic abilities and magically gets up ten minutes before my alarm goes off no matter what time it is set for - I love those moments when my house is still quiet - I get drink a cup of coffee by myself, read a bit, and even pack lunches without cheerios being flung in my sandwich or salad for the day - three times this past week I was up before her, had coffee, took a shower, read, ate breakfast, and got both my and my husbands lunch made and without a kid on my hip I had ZERO cheerios in our food (usually Lucy successfully launches cheerios into our food as I am attempting to keep her occupied - as I make lunch - bounce her on a hip - stuff her with cheerios to keep her happy -  who knows what else)



#workingmom

• Daycare closed early this week and I had a ton of work to do so I brought Lucy to work with me, which is getting more and more difficult with her moving around now and sleeping less than her newborn days - anyways - I got Lucy to church and put her in the baby carrier (it was nap time for Pete's sake) and I made AT LEAST a dozen laps around the church in attempts to get her to sleep - attempting to avoid the narthex as that makes the perfect place to scream and it echoes, and she eventually fell asleep - for the next two hours she successfully slept on my chest while I got a TON done - which means I didn't stay up late working - sleep is sacred!

I continue to dream and hope - I also continue to learn and grow as to what it means to be raising a small child. I today, laugh at these victories, and rejoice in them at the same time. NEVER in my wildest imagination did I think that these things would be worth celebrating.

What things do you dream about?