when i became a mom {part 2}

if you're just now tuning in, i'm sharing my journey to becoming a mom.  {you can check out part 1 here.} and if you've been sitting on the edge your seat waiting for the next installment, please forgive me for making you wait. sometimes i get a little distracted by life and get a little bit of blogging ADD. 

 here it is, the rest of the story:

now you have to understand that coming to the realization that i would have to accept God's plan over my whole plan was much easier said than done.  i knew in my heart this was what needed to be done, but convincing my head to let go of my plans.....let's just say, it didn't happen overnight.

in november of 2010, our pastor asked if i would be interested in preaching the message the day after christmas.  while extremely nervous about such a task, i felt as though God was preparing me for such a task as this.  He led me to a passage found in Mark 14 about a woman who annoints Jesus with perfume from her alabaster jar.  in studying this passage, i learned just how costly a sacrifice this was and began to feel the Holy Spirit stirring in my heart.  one night as i was working on my sermon, i began weeping knowing that God was asking me to make a very costly sacrifice. He was asking me to lay down my plans at His feet.  He was asking me to trust Him with my dreams.

He was asking me to trust him no matter what.

so that meant if His plan was that it would take us 2 more years to get pregnant, i would have to trust Him.  it meant that if i was not able to get pregnant & He led us to adoption, i should trust Him.  and in that moment, with tears streaming down my face, i relented. 

i was terrified of letting go, but ultimately i knew that it was what i had to do.  not because He was forcing me, of course.  i could have chosen to keep holding on, but i knew that the best place for me to be was in the center of His will.  

sunday came & i gave my message with both my family and mike's family there to support me & cheer me on.  during the sermon i shared with the congregation my testimony of our struggle to get pregnant and what had happened while writing the sermon.  it was very difficult, but again, i knew this was exactly what i was supposed to do.

 {the rubins & aleos december 26, 2010}

 the next morning we slept in and planned on just lounging around in our pj's watching movies all day.  for some reason though that morning, mike wanted me to take a pregnancy test.  i had plenty on hand because for the past 11 months i had planned on using quite a few!  so, just to appease him, i said, "sure why not?"  

three minutes later, we walked into the bathroom holding hands.  

never in a million years would we have expected to see this sight. 

yes, there were tears. yes, there was hugging. yes, there might have even been some jumping up and down.  and most certainly, most definitely there were "THANK YOU, GOD"'s!!!!!  i mean, can you even imagine our shock?  this definitely goes down in my book as one of the greatest God moments of my life thus far!  {the picture shows 2 tests because we were in so much shock we needed another verification and as soon as we got the results on that one, we called the doctor to go in to get verification from them too.}  

i'm sure you can imagine the shock of others as we began spilling the beans on our little secret.  like when we told mike's parents and they said, "but a few days ago you just told everyone at church that you weren't pregnant."  and we said, "we know, we had no idea!"  or when we told our connect group.  that night was great.  we were going around sharing prayer requests and mike and i said we had a praise.  someone blurted out, "are you pregnant?"  we just laughed, and everyone just started screaming and hugging us, also having all been there that sunday morning to hear my testimony.

it was, and still is, such a joy to share this story because the only explanation is God.  we continue to give Him glory for giving us this testimony because it just astounds us every time we think about it.  so many times i think about God looking down on us during that year with a very fatherly grin on his face, just sitting back saying, "you just wait.  oh my child, just wait to see what i have in store for you!"

it's such a great reminder that God's timing is perfect.  i'm currently doing a study of nehemiah through she reads truth. {we're only 3 days in & i highly recommend it! it's not too late to join in!} the other day the topic was waiting & most importantly, waiting on God. 

i loved this quote:

“Beloved, our great and pressing need today is to give ourselves to waiting upon God, 

because waiting time is never wasted time.”

~Ian Hamilton 

isn't it so true? maybe we don't see it while we are in the midst of that waiting time, but looking back, it's always so clear where God's hand was moving & how He was working.  and what it really boils down to is a radical trust in God that says, "ok, Lord, no matter what.  NO MATTER WHAT."  

i'm learning day by day, each time i glimpse at my son, my constant reminder of His faithfulness, that the waiting time is so worth it.  

when i became a mom {part 1}

since we will be celebrating mother's day in a few short days, i thought it would be fun to share my very own "becoming a mom" story.  it's kind of a long one, but one in which i feel God's faithfulness and power truly shine.  so here's where it all began:



we decided to start trying to get pregnant in december 2009.  having only been married for 6 months, people thought we were crazy, but i didn't care.  i was 31 years old and was ready to be a mom....about 16 years prior to that!  ok, not really ready, but you see, being a mom is something i've longed for as long as i can remember.  my lifelong dream was always to get married and have kids.  there were times in my life that i probably wanted to get married as more of a means to an end: i needed to get married to have kids.  (i certainly don't feel that way now! i'm so very thankful for my husband!!)  but to be a mom was my greatest wish. 

 {the rubins 2009}

i was so excited about the idea of getting pregnant! how we would find out? how many pregnancy tests would it take? how would we do the "big reveal"? and of course, i thought because i wanted to be pregnant and we had done everything "right", it would just happen.

but God had other plans.

after a couple months of trying with no success, i was ok.  it had only been a couple months.  but i remember that by march i began asking a few trusted friends to pray for me because i could sense the anger starting to creep in, and i wanted desperately to keep it at bay.  months went by, and we continued to cry out to have this prayer for a baby answered, but it seemed our prayers were falling on deaf ears.  

one of those friends that i had turned to for prayer would check in with me from time to time, and in one of those conversations, he approached a subject that no one else had dared to ever bring up before.  he said that it could be possible that it wasn't God's will for me to get pregnant.  had it come from anyone else, it's possible i could've punched them in the face, but coming from him, it really made me think.  

what if God really did have other plans for me?

was i prepared for this? was i prepared to lay down my dreams of getting pregnant, of having my own baby?  did i have the strength to actually free this dream from my hands and lay it at the throne? nope, not yet!  no, this was my dream, and i was clinging to it with all of my might.  

a few more months went by, and it seemed that with each passing month, i would learn of someone else getting pregnant.  and to rub salt into the wound, it almost always was on the day i would find out that i was not pregnant.  after the third or fourth time, i fired out to God, "seriously? dig the knife a little deeper, why don't you?"  that anger i was trying to keep at bay, it was consuming me like wildfire.  i was scared to look at facebook for fear of reading someone else's announcement because my reaction was so severe, it would cause me to get a migraine.  

i became obsessed with getting pregnant. i would read article after article about all things pregnancy.  i could not keep my mind off of it.  and one day as i was getting ready for the day, i remember telling God, "i want this more than anything in my whole life." and i clearly heard Him say, 

"i want you to want me more than anything in your whole life."  

i felt like i had gotten the wind knocked out of me. i literally had to stop what i was doing and catch my breath.  

throughout this time i struggled with reading my bible and praying anything other than, "please let this be the month", but there was one day when i picked up my bible and began reading in psalm.  i happened upon this verse:

it was in the first part of this verse, i found a promise.  He was going to fulfill His purpose in me, and i truly believed that he made me to be a mom.  and whatever plans He had, i was going to have to be willing to accept them. 

_________________________________________________________________

stay tuned for part 2!

snowstorm of the season

we've made out pretty good this winter as far as snow goes, in that, we haven't had much!

i'm not a big fan of snow. 

before i became a mom, snow was my favorite because i was a teacher & snow meant snow days.

no school!!

hubby & i could spend all day in our pjs. 

i could spend all day snuggled up reading a book.

 though these days i can definitely spend all day in my pjs (yep, happens quite frequently), i don't get much reading done.

wednesday we were supposed to get a big snow storm. schools were closing the night before even before a flake fell from the sky.  i guess because we haven't had snow is so long, people were forgetting what it was like! 

and when we woke up.....i'm not even sure we had 3 inches!

some storm.

but since this was the last of the snow we will see for awhile, we took eli out to play in the snow for the first time. 

 i had to get some good use out of the $2 puffy coat i scored at a local thrift store earlier this year!

i had to document it too so that he knew that there was a day that mama came out in the snow with him. (playing in the snow with my kids will be a labor of love for me. i dislike it sooooo much!)

this boy & his sticks.

he just loves them!

poor dink had to stay inside.

 

i think he could've stayed out all morning, but mama was freezing.  

he threw a fit when it was time to come in.   

all he wanted to do was shovel & shovel & shovel some more. 

 

soon enough we will venture outside, though we won't be wearing our puffy coats!

this weekend it's going to get close to 60 degrees!!

come on, spring!

 

shoulders

over the last year i've been asked the following questions {or ones very similar}:

will you teach eli "shoulders"?

will eli do "shoulders"?

when will eli start doing "shoulders"?

well, my friends, the time has come. 

if you are scratching your head wondering what in the world "shoulders" is, thinking maybe you have missed something vitally important, let me give you some background.

the only way to really do this is through video:

this is the original "shoulders 1.0" video shot 2 years ago.

and another, "shoulders: the wedding version":

a few days ago i began practicing with eli:

and now we have "shoulders: the breakfast version":

yes, we will continue to add to our repertoire & yes, i will be happy to post them for all of our fans!

{insta}week

alright, can someone please tell me how it's possible that november is almost half over????

my birthday is next week. {insert big smile here}

thanksgiving is next week.

christmas decorations are popping up everywhere.

i mean, we are definitely having fun, but i feel like i must have missed a few weeks somewhere.

 good thing i'm an instagram addict!

i spent the beginning of this week visiting one of my favorite people, my bff, bethany.

here's eli & i setting out on our roadtrip

then we got stuck in traffic.

buzz kill.

but we made it, and we had a blast.

i love that though we don't get to see each other often, we just pick up where left off.

sure, we have things to catch up on, but we still laugh & laugh & reminisce about the crazy things we used to do. 

{of course post babies, it takes us a little longer to remember some of those things}

one purpose for our visit was to meet eli's future wife, baby izzy.  

 we decided that we needed pictures of them as babies together so that when they get married in 25 years we can break the pictures out at their wedding. 

we tried to get pictures of the boys {she also has an almost 2 year old, bauer}, 

but photographing two active boys: not so easy!

those pics are on the camera & someone borrowed our camera, 

so you'll just have to take my word for it.

we were very sad when it was time to come home. 

oh how i wished we lived closer! 

but it was good to get home to see daddy since last week he had been out of town for work.

lots of snuggling happening around here!

while we were at b's, eli had fallen down {what's new? #storyofhislittlelife} & on wednesday, he woke up with his very first shiner. 

one of my friends & followers on instagram threatened to call social services on me.

sometimes i wonder if i'll have one of those accident-prone kids.

be one of those moms that the nurses in the er have on the radar. 

so about every other week i contemplate getting rid of my facebook account for so many reasons, really, but i haven't brought myself to do it yet. 

and this week, i found one more reason to keep it.

i used it to my advantage to request the donation of old matchbox cars to my car-less son.

within minutes of hitting enter, i was hit up with numerous willing donors. 

would you believe that i searched yard sale after yard sale & found not one little car?

he was so excited! 

he loves them!

i haven't done a great job this week with keeping up with she reads truth, but here's a verse that spoke to me this week.

especially when one of my tasks this week was folding bulletins:

i really don't mind doing it; 

it's hard to imagine that folding paper could be something done "unto the lord". 

but it seems pretty clear: not some things or once in a while or half the time.

WHATEVER you do. 

makes you {me} think about how you {i} conduct yourself {myself} in all things!

a day for the history books

yes, it is election day & it is a very important day, but i will get to that in a bit.

 

today is a very monumental day because today was the first mini-emergency in the rubin household regarding our little one.

now, please note, i use the term "emergency" for lack of a better term.

i fully realized at the time that it was not emergency room material.

however, it was much past the stages of "let-me-kiss-it-and-make-it-better".

 

you see, my son had blood gushing {and i don't use that term dramatically} from his finger.

i had let charlie out so we were playing in the den until charlie was done his business.

all of a sudden eli starts crying, but i have no idea why because he was still in the same spot he had been 30 seconds before.

he put his hands down on a box that was sitting in front of the chair in the room, and when he moved his hand, there was a puddle of blood.

naturally, i was quite surprised because i had no idea where this blood would be coming from. 

i then realized he must have cut it on one of these bottles:

i have 2 of these big decorative bottles from my grandmother's house, and

one of them got broken somehow several weeks ago.

the top part where the cork is broke off, but it was a clean break so i really didn't think it was a hazard.

i had even run my fingers over it to make sure the edges weren't sharp.

guess i was wrong!

 

so eli's crying, blood is gushing & i'm trying to retrieve any info that i learned in first aid. 

apply pressure and raise the wound!

ok, but they didn't teach me what to do when the 14 month old patient doesn't want to cooperate.

 

i had no way of telling how deep the cut was so i figured a trip to the doctor's wouldn't hurt.

i called mike, who had just arrived at his staff meeting, to tell him he needed to come home so we could take eli to the doctor.

thankfully the doctor is only 2 blocks from our house & they had no patients at the time. 

poor baby cried harder when he saw the nurse come in than when it happened.

they got it cleaned up & showed us the nice little slice mark on his thumb. 

the funny thing is, i had planned on taking him in today to get the second part of his flu shot. 

so we figured as long as we were there, and he was upset anyway, might as well go ahead and do that too.

 to make up for it, we let eli "ride dirty" in the car.

don't judge, but that's what we call it when we let him ride in the car without sitting in his car seat.

i know what you're thinking, if they have a name for it, they must do that a lot.

not really, only a few times.

mostly when we went yard sale-ing in this one huge neighborhood.

he thinks it's the coolest.

we like to make him smile.

and after all that, he needed a smile.

don't worry, i made sure to snap a pic of the aftermath:

{it was also all over his face, pants and socks.}

 

i wanted to get a picture while the blood was gushing, but i didn't think subjecting my crying, bleeding child to a photo shoot was really "mother of the year" material. 

probably thinking of taking a picture at that time wasn't really 

"mother of the year" material.

hmmmm

i couldn't get a good picture of the boo boo after the blood {surprise}, but here is his little boo boo hand clutching kitty, who makes everything better.

               ============================================================

and now for my thoughts on the election.

i tried to get into politics about 8 years ago, but got pretty fed up with it because the reality is that there's no honesty.

i've voted 3 times in my life because i have the right to do it & because it's a special freedom.

i've never backed any particular candidate with strong conviction.

i've pretty much taken the "lesser of two evils" approach.

right or wrong, it's just the way i've done it because i don't believe that any politician will ever share my beliefs or be strong enough to live out the type of convictions that i hold to be most valuable.

but here's what i do know. 

no matter who wins, no matter what party has control over this country, there is still One who has ultimate control over the universe.

no matter whose faces appears in the little oval as the next president in the back of our history books, 

God is still sovereign & will reign victoriously.

 

He has already written the outcome.

He's already planned our future.

 

And it's in Him that i place my hope.

it's in Him that i place my trust.

{insta}week

it's sunday night.

 i'm sitting here drinking a cup of coffee while my {not so} little brother eats our leftovers from our first thanksgiving dinner of the month.

he came in this weekend for a wedding & requested a family thanksgiving since we don't get to see him for thanksgiving anymore.

my mom cooked, i hosted & it was a wonderful evening. 

but oh, i couldn't wait to pull on the sweatpants & baggy sweatshirt.

ate.too.much.

but such a great way to end the week!

 this week started out, of course, with hurricane sandy coming to town.

thankfully, by the grace of God, we only experienced some water in the basement.

we kept waiting for the limbs to fall off our tree out front {because they always do},

but nothing!

but we used the storm as a great excuse to stay in our pjs all day  & eat all the food we thought might go bad if we lost power.

you can see here charlie was waiting & watching.

we were so grateful that this was all we had to deal with. 

eli lately:

each stage we experience with him is awesome & amazing & fun.

this is my favorite so far. 

{i say this knowing there is so much yet to come}

i love that he's beginning to mimic us & we witness what we teach him.

i love that he's such a little ham.

he loves to make faces & laugh & make people laugh.

i can't get enough of that little face.

my cup overflows.

{insta}week

whoa! three posts in one week!

i know, i'm on a roll!

not to send you on overload, but it is sunday & that means it's picture time!

 last sunday when i came out of church, i had a flat. 

some of you may know the alpha male i married.

some of you may know that's not so very true :)

thank goodness for the manly men of providence community.

funny that our message that day was on relationships: keeping it real & banding together.

why is it that women always have more bathrooms, yet such LONG lines??? 

 this is at the apple harvest festival where we went after church.

 i got to partake in one of the most wonderful delicacies of all time: apple sausage. 

oh.my.word. it is so good.

this year i bought some to bring home!

we're really trying to get a little more organized {key word: trying}

this week we worked in the office.

the boss man made sure we didn't take any unwarranted breaks.

sometimes i think charlie looks like the saddest dog in the world. 

i just love him. 

as i mentioned in the previous post, i've been following She Reads Truth.

just a snippet from my journal this week.

now for two very exciting happenings this week:

1. i finally gave eli a haircut

2. eli has started walking

here is a pre-haircut pic:

it was soooo long & shaggy.  

the back was hanging over his shirt collar. 

it was driving me crazy.

post-haircut:

i tried to get a better one, but when i asked him to look at me this is what i got:

such a monkey!

here's the aftermath.  

it doesn't look nearly as bad as it was for real.

i had cleaned up most of the hair.

the only way i could get it done was to let him play in the sink.

this was also post-haircut :)

i took eli to the library to play this week & that's where he decided to let loose.
here's just a little glimpse i caught:
{just a note: the voice you hear is not eli, though it seems to fit perfectly}

thanks for checking in {again}.
have a great week!

my week via instagram

i don't know why, but the phrase "another one bites the dust" just popped into my head as a way to begin this post.

i feel like that implies that this week was bad or that my life is just one week fading into another.

rest assured, it was not & it is not!

we had a fun week filled with lots of family time & even a live car accident! 

{keep reading for details...}

our lawn has been weed central for weeks & mike finally mowed it this week. 

eli enjoyed watching daddy.  

i told him someday when he was big, he could mow the lawn. 

and when daddy mows, mommy gets the fun job of scooping the poop. 

eli can have that job too.

we had some family time at the park...though it didn't last too long.

not much for a 7 month old to do.

plus, it was soooo hot! 

i don't know if i'm ready for summer yet.  

i'm just glad i'm not pregnant this summer!

i had to run to the grocery store & when i returned home, eli showed off his new 'do.

daddy had fun playing hairdresser.

too cute, right?

one day we had a picnic lunch out at codorus. 

it was so beautiful out....though a bit windy on top of the hill.

then another day we went to visit daddy while he was doing some work at his office away from home: panera.

i'm really not sure why we were cozying up by the fire while it was so nice outside, but it was fun nonetheless.

i totally indulged in an iced mocha, but it was soooo good!

i started working out again this week {finally} so i didn't feel quite as bad.

no week would be complete without picking up a few needed items at the store.

we happened to score the last of these cute little babies.

we got a great deal too!

ok, so now the story you've been sitting on the edge of your seat for....

so saturday we were sitting in the living room hanging out & talking when all of a sudden we hear a crash, glass breaking, metal crunching & a scream.  

then we see a car come cruising up into the neighbor's yard across the street.

mike & his mom {who was here visiting} went running outside while i called 911.

it was a 3 car accident, 2 cars hitting head on & the 3rd in the neighbor's yard...missing that tree there by inches. 

miraculously, no one was hurt...maybe a few bruises and some whiplash, but nothing serious at all.

here's a better picture of the car in the yard. 

they ran over the stop sign & cruised in between this tree & another tree.

they also could've ran into the house.

it was crazy! 

it made for a lot of excitement on our corner.

after our adrenaline high, we hung out with a bunch of friends at a birthday party for our friends' son.

it was a great way to end the day!

i'm so bummed because picnik.com closed down & now i can't do my collages for my #photoaday pics.
until i find another way to do it, i'll just have some really long posts!

day 16: "flower" - i love that i have my very own lilac bush outside! this is one of my favorite smells.

day 17: "something you don't like" - doing dishes. when i was younger i would clean the whole house for my mom before i would do the dishes.
unfortunately, i can't get out it now.

day 18: "hair" - i posted this twice because it was the perfect hair picture.

day 19: "orange" - i didn't know what to post for this one because we have a lot of orange objects in our house...it's a favorite color of ours, but when i saw this orange car i thought it was such a crazy color for a car.  i really didn't think i had seen too many orange cars before & since then i've seen probably 15.  weird.

day 21: "bottle" - this is one of 2 huge green bottles that came from my grandparents' house. she had them sitting in her window with a bunch of other bottles & i always loved the way they looked. when my grandma passed away, i took them to always have that memory.

day 22: "the last thing you bought" - just a couple of things from one of my weekly trips to target.
{i actually bought coffee today but forgot to take a picture.}

yeah, i know, i missed day 20. i forgot to take a picture for that day. the story of my life: "i forgot".

anyway, i'm really bummed about the weather forecast for this week.
being stuck inside makes for long days, so we'll have to find something fun to do to document.

oh & i'm still working on my post about the food pantry.
i keep forgetting though that i need to finish it.

thanks for stopping by.
hope you all have a great week!!