weight loss during pregnancy obese | Baby Dedication 2015 Isaac

weight loss during pregnancy obese

One of the downfalls of moving often when you are growing a family is that you sometimes miss out on baby-related events (like church baby showers and baby dedications). 

In the case of Jack, we had not yet placed membership at our church in Huntsville when it was time for baby dedication Sunday. So while we were in the audience, we did not get to participate in standing on stage with the other parents (we officially placed membership shortly after that Sunday).

This past Sunday was New Arrivals Day (or baby dedication day) at the church we currently worship with in Chattanooga. These events always make me feel a bit emotional. To start there was a slideshow of the new babies, followed by comments from the Childrens Minister and then all of the families with new arrivals joined the Pulpit Minister on stage to dedicate our sweet babies.

As we walked up on to the stage I was struggling to choke back my emotions, but then Jack started acting goofy and I had something to focus on instead of crying (so really it was a good distraction).

(image via Clear Creek Church, Isaac is center with gray hat)

Before we were called up onto the stage, the Childrens Minister explained that each family would receive a Mason Jar filled with 938 pennies to represent each week our child will be in our care, he then challenged us to make each week with our kids count. 

Once on stage our pulpit minister exhorted us to dedicate our children to God and to raise them as the bible has called us.

(image via Clear Creek Church)

He also requested that the congregation support us all in our endeavor to raise godly children (it was more eloquent than that, but I was trying to keep Jack from spinning around the stage – baby dedications are not a great place to practice spinjitzu). 

Im thankful for our church family and for the opportunity to participate in an official baby dedication. Our prayer, and goal as parents, is that our children will grow up to love the Lord with all their hearts, souls and minds, and to love others as they love themselves. 

Afterwards the church provided a meal for all of the families so that we could have the opportunity to fellowship. We were thankful to have Daniels parents join us on this special day.

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end of pregnancy weight loss | My Love Language is Coffee

end of pregnancy weight loss

 

If my cupboards are any indication, my love language is definitely coffee (the picture below shows about 24 mugs – a fraction of the coffee cups we own). I suppose coffee would fall under Gary Chapmans described language of quality time. I want to savor a good cup of coffee in the company of someone close to me.

Over the last month-and-a-half, I have been leading a Wednesday night class at my church on the topic of hospitality. We are following the SheReadsTruth study and each week I have asked different women to share personal experiences. In addition I also include supplemental content that I run across – mostly from the blogs I read.

Last night I shared a little from the blog Fellowship Kitchen. The author, Alyssa Passage, writes about the faux pas of sharing personal pain during the holiday season, and that in keeping those struggles to ourselves we do a disservice to those who might be able to love on us.

She says:

Silence costs us…

The silence, about what effects our hearts, leads to loneliness and isolation even while we sit at packed holiday tables, elbow in the mashed potatoes.

Silence costs listening ears, comfort, camaraderie, and the plethora of hugs you need. No, gestures like that won’t cure the hurt but at least we’ll be surrounded by love and the voice of truth, “You’re not alone.”

And as a final thought — let’s dually hold sadness and peace in our hearts, not because everything is alright, but because Jesus is a bringer of gifts. And those gifts often arrive in the arms of friends and family. - See more at: http://kitchenfellowship.com/if-the-holidays-hurt-your-heart/#sthash.dRDnvKiO.dpuf

 

So if you are hurting in some way this holiday season, whether from anxiety, difficulty parenting, aging parents, infertility, miscarriage, death, job situations, or whatever your heartache is, I hope you will chose to share that burden with someone close to you, perhaps over coffee. 

 

And if you know someone who may be having a difficult time right now, I hope you will choose to show hospitality to that person by offering a listening ear, a hug, or a note to let that person know they are not alone. In this season we are reminded that Jesus was the ultimate gift giver and those gifts can arrive in the form of friends and loved ones.

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weight loss during pregnancy overweight | Thanksgiving 2015 My Menu

weight loss during pregnancy overweight

The first time I hosted a Thanksgiving dinner was five years ago for my in-laws. It was our first time to use our china, though not my first time meal planning for a crowd (I had previously planned and shopped for 35+ people for weekend family reunions). So I guess you can say I have a little experience in this arena.

Five years ago I felt rushed and somewhat stressed – probably because I planned too many dishes and had trouble allowing others to fully help me. Daniels family all stepped in as wonderful sous chefs, but my own character flaws made it more stressful than it had to be.

This time around, I am older and hopefully wiser. I planned out my menu the week before. Knocked out the shopping on the Sunday before Thanksgiving (by myself!) and felt ready to go.

Along with my recipes, I had a plan of how long items took to cook and at what temps. This made it tremendously easy to get everything done without being stressed. Though the last 30 minutes of prep was a mad dash, but it all came off without a hitch!

Another thing we did differently this time was baking most of the pies the night before. While the pies baked, I took the opportunity to also bake my sweet potatoes for our sweet potato casserole.

Here are my thoughts on each dish on my menu:

Maple Roasted Turkey with Smoked Bacon  
[recipe from Tyler Florence on The Food Network]
This was my third turkey to do with bacon and it did not disappoint. Each time I have tried a different recipe or variation, but this one was by far the simplest to make, and perhaps most flavorful. My 20lb turkey took exactly 3.5 hours to bake. The maple syrup gave it a slight sweetness that I enjoyed and that meshed well with the other dishes that incorporated maple syrup. My mom thought the maple syrup made her gravy a bit sweet, but I thought it was all delicious.

Stuffing 
My mom made her usual stuffing (she even pre-cooked the cornbread and brought it with her from Arkansas). In the future I might consider making another pan of stuffing for such a large crowd.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Cinnamon Butternut Squash, Pecans and Cranberries 
[recipe floating around Facebook]
The week before Thanksgiving I saw this recipe on Facebook and thought that it would be a good addition to our spread. It had maple syrup as an ingredient and that tied in wonderfully with the turkey. I accidentally bought fresh cranberries instead of dried, so at the last minute I ended up adding dried apples (found in my pantry) to the dish instead. The flavors all worked well together. 

Green Bean Casserole
[recipe from Frenchs]
We had the traditional green bean casserole recipe found on the Frenchs French Fried Onion can. I had the wrong kind of green beans (flat, wide ones instead of skinny french cut). I dont think my sister was a fan, and while I agree I like the skinny green beans better, this dish was still tasty and there were no leftovers.

Mashed Potatoes 
[recipe from Pioneer Woman]
The Pioneer Woman NEVER lets me down with her recipes. These mashed potatoes were decadent in a savory kind of way. You could eat them without gravy, they were that good. They were also good cold and I even threw them in broccoli-potato soup at the end of the week. Five pounds of potatoes really went a long way and they were amazing!

Soul Sweet Taters 
[recipe from Pioneer Woman]
Another score for The Pioneer Woman. I baked the sweet potatoes the night before. The only negative was that one of my potatoes didnt fully cook and so it didnt mash up completely in the casserole. It was still good though! Also, I need to buy one more 9x13 dish. I ended up making this casserole in a shorter, deeper dish and the ratio of topping to potatoes was off.

PW Dinner Rolls 
[recipe from Pioneer Woman]
These rolls were a bit finicky – though I always have trouble with bread. The dough was SUPER moist and I couldnt seem to make it dry enough. I more than doubled the recipes stated 4 cups of flour! I literally kept stirring in flour until I could work with it. And even then, I ended up pouring the batter directly into the muffin tins. So basically we had muffin rolls. They still tasted good though!

5 Cup Salad 
[oranges, pineapple, marshmallows, sour cream and coconut]
This is one of my favorite family recipes. We have been making this dish for Thanksgiving as long as I can remember. Daniel doesnt care for sour cream or coconut, but that just leaves more for me!

Cherry Yum Yum
[recipe found on Pinterest]
Daniels family makes this dessert for every holiday and I have really come to love it. I dont think this particular recipe is the same one as what his family makes, but I have had a hard time getting Daniels Great Aunt Thula or his Grandmother to write down the exact recipe. I need to bug them some more!

Pecan and Pumpkin Pie
My mom made the pecan and pumpkin pies that she has been making forever. I especially love her pecan pie. My parents always gather pecans from the trees around town and share their spoils with us. I think we all agreed we need to make homemade crusts next year.

 
Apple Pie 
[cousin Moriah]
My cousin Moriah made an apple pie with the help of my niece, Izzy. They did an excellent job. I didnt have any shortening on hand for her crust, so she made it with butter and it was SO GOOD. I want her to make all of our crusts with butter in the future!

So that was our meal in a nutshell. It was delicious and decadent and made with loving hands. I didnt feel stressed and everyone had more than their fill of good food (plus lots of good leftovers!).

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timeline of pregnancy weight loss | Happy 4th Birthday Jack!

timeline of pregnancy weight loss

We had several celebrations with Jack over the course of the last week. We had a friend party on Saturday, followed by a family dinner to celebrate at El Metate (the Mexican place where you wear a blue hat), and then a preschool party on Jacks actual birthday.

We are about partied out around here.

I have so much to say about my sweet boy, though not all of the blogs in the world would adequately describe him or what he means to our family. Hopefully these few words will suffice.

At four, Jack is incredibly curious. As with most parents of 3 and 4 year olds, we continue to be in a never-ending why phase. As a parent I have a love-hate relationship with these questions. I love that he is learning and wants so badly to know things, but sometimes the questions never seem to cease. These questions stretch me to help him understand the world around us and in turn I learn more as well.

Right now Jack havs a deep love for people and helping others. He has never met a stranger. His standard pick-up line at the park is "Hi, Im Jack. Im three [now four]. Do you want to play with me?" I hope he is always this outgoing and that his sweet spirit never gets crushed. His confidence amazes me. He doesnt care how old or young you are, he wants to be your friend. It makes him sad when older kids are not interested in playing with him. In turn that makes me sad, but I try to let him experience these harder moments without interference, along with the sweet moments.

 

At preschool and church, Jack wants to hold the door for every single person coming in and out. We are typically running late anyways, so I really have to check my patience at the door. Instead of being exasperated that we are behind (mostly my fault anyways), I allow him to hold doors and talk to everyone. I hope he always desires to put others first.

We spend a decent amount of time in the car and I try to use those moments to teach him things like our address and how to count to 100 and how to do basic addition and subtraction using his fingers. He is a little sponge and soaks up all of these lessons. He is starting to consistently recognize a handful of letters and can spell his name. One of his favorite games is to play teacher and I know that his time spent in preschool aids in his love for all things school and learning related. He has quite a few books memorized (his favorite right now is Madeline) and I cant wait until he learns to actually read and all of the doors that reading will open for him.

This year Jack requested his very own kayak so that he could take his friends paddling with him. This was a big change from last year when all he wanted was an electric toothbrush! Since it was November, we werent ready to commit to a kayak, but we are still mulling it over – maybe Christmas little buddy! His back up request was an Optimus Prime robot (which his Great Grandmother lovingly bought for him!). I think he had a good birthday.

Most days the days are long, but the years really are short. Im still kind of in shock that we have a four-year-old. Jack loves being four, but doesnt get why he doesnt get to move up to the 4s class at preschool and church. I am working to convince him that he is one of the first to turn four and he gets the privilege of teaching the other kids how to get ready to be four. I am really looking forward to the coming year and all that it holds for Jack.

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weight loss on early pregnancy | Smores with the Moores Birthday Party Jacks 4th Birthday Party

weight loss on early pregnancy

For some reason October through the end of the year always feel extra crazy. This is the fourth time we have had a birthday party for Jack (though a first time to do it with friends) and we were still scrambling to put it together in a timely manner.

How do birthdays always sneak up on us? Are we alone in this mad scramble?

Anyways, this year we decided to invite a few friends over to celebrate with Jack. He had one specific request: he wanted a pinata. We went to a party earlier this year with a pinata (he called it a piranha) and he was enamored. 

Daniel and I quickly decided on a woodsy-outdoors theme and sent out an invite via Facebook (Im falling down on the job, there were no printed invitations this year). 

I then said a little prayer that the weather (in November no less) would cooperate and then started perusing Pinterest for party ideas.

Besides the plan for Smores, I thought an outdoor nature scavenger hunt would be fun, and then of course, we had the pinata.

While Friday was sunny and warm, Saturday we experienced a huge drop in temperature, along with rain. Boo.

This basically meant I had to scrap the Smores and scavenger hunt idea. At the last minute, I found some animal silhouettes that I printed off and set out on the table, along with kraft paper, glue, markers and leaf stickers. I figured I couldnt go wrong with stickers. We also moved Jacks tent from our screened in porch to the living room.

The kids arrived and had a blast. They werent bothered by what we didnt get a chance to do. And when they started to fight over who got to play with what, I directed them all to the dining room table for my last-minute craft. The kids decided they were making treasure maps – sure, whatever you want to make is fine by me!

After our craft, we celebrated with Owl Cupcakes that Jack helped to make (thank you Pinterest!, though mine were not nearly as pretty as the online photos I found). But they were delicious!

And finally we let the kids hit the pinata. Jack had a blast, and Im pretty sure his friends had fun too. I am working on relaxing a bit and enjoying the party and going with the flow. 

I will probably always do a bit of decorating and making things (nothing wrong with that), but Im trying to find balance and not go overboard.

We still have all of the ingredients for Smores with the Moores... 
I guess we just have to save that for another day!

 

Birthday Parties from Years Past: 

Trucks Go, Age 1  |  Frogs, Snails and Puppy Dog Tails, Age 2  |  Curious George, Age 3

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