Mother Love

We love music in our house. We’re not musicians or great singers (although living in Nashville we are literally surrounded by both), but we do almost always have something playing in the background when we’re at home or driving in the car. Ayla has started dancing to anything upbeat that comes on, and her little bob-up-and-down-dance is the cutest thing. Her favorite thing to watch (even more than a kid’s show) is any of the worship sets from Bethel Church, and she will stand and raise her hands to “worship Jesus” or sway her arms back and forth to the music…it’s the darlingest thing and melts my heart into a million little pieces every time I see her engaging in it.

I’m always on the hunt for fresh music, and sometimes I feel so ridiculous when I have an entire library of thousands of songs in my iTunes library and I basically don’t want to listen to any of them. Those twenty-first century problems, you know. If you happen to have the same problem and need some new music, here’s some of my current playlist favorites::

Beside You by Cameron James
After All These Years by Brian and Jenn Johnson
Covers by Jillian Edwards
The Secret Place by Phil Wickham
Soldier by Fleurie
Closer to Your Heart by Kari Jobe/Cody Carnes

I also love this album and this album and this playlist for background instrumental music.

Also, if you’re a country music fan, keep a listen out for this girl. She’s one of my dearest friends with a heart of gold that loves Jesus more than anything else, and she’s about to release some SUPER FUN music in the next few weeks.

What about you:: what are your current playlist favorites?

Well, hi there again!

It’s been a while since my last update, and with the holidays and then dealing with the sickies of the first trimester (YES!! WE’RE HAVING ANOTHER BABY!!), I certainly wasn’t feeling the creative feels, hehe. But thankfully I am now feeling almost back to normal and it makes me want to throw my arms around myself at random moments and say welcome back it’s so good to be you again. What is it about those first few weeks of pregnancy that just make you feel like a kind of foreigner in your own skin? It’s just a strange season for me with so many hormones raging and brain fog and overwhelming tiredness and the most random food cravings and aversions. I mean, I couldn’t eat avocados, chicken, or green, healthy things…but give me all the bread, pizza, burgers, french fries, and any other food that I didn’t cook (preferably as fatty and hearty as possible). I literally didn’t make anything in my kitchen besides egg sandwiches for four solid weeks…a strange thing for this foodie-mama who normally loves to cook, bake, and make things in the kitchen more than anything else. And bless my sweet husband who is the most gracious, kind soul who was basically mama and daddy for those difficult weeks, making his own meals, cleaning up the dishes, bringing me toast and hot tea and soda water with lime.

But now we’re almost into the second trimester and that, my dears, is a great feeling. Little baby is the size of a lime and we already love that sweet one so much. Ayla doesn’t really know exactly what is going on with it all, of course, but she does know to how to kiss and pat my belly when we talk about baby…although she then has to do the same to Ben (we’ll work on that one). Sometimes it does feel a bit surreal knowing that we will have two kids to parent and take care of, but yet it feels so right and we are overjoyed to see our family grow.

Besides growing a baby, we really haven’t been up to much else lately. It’s basically been a full-time job entailing mostly laying on the the recliner for the majority of the day and trying to keep Ayla entertained with things that require little to no energy (not an easy feat). She ended up spending a few days with my parents a few weeks ago, and while it was such a strange feeling to be at home without her, it was so nice to get some extra rest. And I think it helped propel me over the worst of the sickies and tiredness. We were more than ready to have her back with us after a few days, and it was actually such a good reminder and reset my perspective again that, yes, this parenting-mothering thing is exactly what I want to do with my life. It felt so odd and awkward to not have the normal routines of our daily life when she was away, plus I was just bored without her endless chatter and giggles and funny quirks filling up the hours of the day.

We had a great holiday season, and spent a few days in New York with Ben’s family and then a few days in South Carolina with my family. My mom and sister ended up coming back with us then after Christmas so we could have a few days in Nashville together as a girls-getaway to celebrate my mom’s birthday. I didn’t even know I was pregnant at that point yet, and was still feeling normal…so we had a great time doing fun things around the city:: shopping, drinking coffee, getting our nails done, and eating out. You know, all the best things.

I have to say, it feels good to pluck away at these computer keys again and update this little blog. I just literally could not summon the energy or the creativity to write anything over the past few months…it’s nice to be back.

What about you:: what are the funny/annoying/quirky things that you deal with in the first trimester??

I’d love to hear your thoughts!