Family – Page 5 – All the things

Cleft Lip, Family, My Story, Uncategorized

Waiting for Harvey

March 3, 2014June 21, 2014 Jessica

Today as I write this, I am 33 weeks and 5 days pregnant. My belly is growing which means this little man is too! He stays very active and is always letting me know he is there! It won’t be too much longer before we are able to meet this precious gift and we couldn’t be any more excited!

I decided to post an update because we have had so many questions. Right now I am not sure that we know much more then we knew when I first posted about Harvey but there is more that I didn’t share then. First of all, everything is looking great at my prenatal appointments. I am measuring about 2 weeks bigger, but had some extra amniotic fluid at my ultrasound so this is probably why. They are not concerned about it which is great!

I am just going to try to answer a lot of questions that I am getting frequently. Our plan is to deliver here, not at ACH. There is not any reason for us to need to go elsewhere. We will take him to Children’s when he is about a week old for his initial evaluation. As long as he is able to eat without problems, we should be able to just go home like normal after birth. So, really the answer to this question is, although there could be complications or issues associated with his cleft, we are not planning on any of them. We are well informed but plan on a normal delivery.

What will life be like when he gets here? We do not know the answer to that. We have so much information and feel very prepared for the unknown- as strange as that sounds. Until he is here everything is up in the air. We have been given lots of “this could happen” cases, so we know what could be. A few things we do know, his weight will be monitored very closely for the first 3 months, with weight checks weekly. We will be working with the nutritionist at ACH during this time to adjust his feedings/calories to make sure he is on track for surgery. His first surgery will be at 3 months.

There may or may not be more surgeries, it is all dependent on the extent of his cleft. The first year of life is hectic, they were very honest about that. There will be many trips to ACH, lots of appointments, I am going to guess lots of tears! We know that this is a journey and one that won’t always be easy but we have the biggest peace about it. We know God is bigger then this and we are just thankful to have so many amazing doctors caring for us! We are thankful that Harvey is otherwise healthy and that my pregnancy has been healthy as well.

Most of you know I am a photographer but I tend to be terrible about planning pictures that include me. I realized I really wanted a few good pictures of me pregnant with Harvey but I hadn’t scheduled any AND I am almost 34 weeks. So this morning, Mr. Meinardi decided to humor me and attempt a few pictures. I will say, a few turned out super cute. Being the perfectionist (in recovery) that I am, I am trying hard to remember that he is not a photographer! He really did do a good job. Thank you honey!

I think he found it harder to take pictures of all of us! But we captured the moment so that is all that matters!

We used my Tripod and took one of us together. I am hoping to get a few more of both of us in it later.

I love these of Garner and I! Probably my favorite. She is only the baby for a few more weeks!

Encouragement, Family, My Story

Perception: a mess or a blessing?

March 2, 2014June 21, 2014 Jessica

Perception is a funny thing. Have you ever looked at something and saw it completely different then someone else? I often see how different perception is when I hear my kids talk. They see the world so differently then we do. I also hear it when others talk about themselves, situations, opinions. I have really started seeing how powerful perception is and how different it can be.

Last week I was getting ready for life group and I was busy getting the house ready. Cleaning, putting things away, making sure we had everything we needed and so on. I looked around and felt really good about everything. I started preparing my portion of our meal and before I know it, I look around around me and in the floor there are toys all over the place, some “crunchy” which is just G’s cereal she likes to eat, and I suddenly felt the need to sigh and be a little irritated. I had just spent a lot of time cleaning and preparing. I had already swept the floors and the toys had been put back into their places.

Perception……. Sometimes I think it is a choice. How we choose to view situations is up to us. Times like these are the ones I would struggle with (and still do). I would immediately come a little unravelled (sometimes a lot), and I would begin to allow my emotions to just take over. Cereal and toys in the floor would become “no one ever listens” “you guys never” or “you always!” and then I would start remembering every single thing that drove me nuts.

In that moment, after I sighed, I smiled. I looked at my kids who love me so very much, and I said out loud “I think that this small mess could have easily thrown off my mood, but I am choosing to see if differently. You know what I see? A blessing! I am a blessed momma to have these kids and this mess.” And that was it. We stopped, and cleaned up the mess and there was nothing more. Well except for maybe a small victory for me!

To some reading this, it might seem very silly, but maybe there are other areas in your life where you are struggling to see positive. I am working hard to change my perception of things. One thing that is helping me is to gain biblical perspective on my life. Often times, the reactions that seem to be most natural and justified, are actually destructive and harmful.

Perception is a very powerful choice. How we choose to see things can effect every aspect of our life. We have a choice in how we perceive situations, circumstances, ourselves…. I have found that a lot of my reaction comes from my perception of what is going on. These choices aren’t easy, but I find when I choose to see things in a positive light, I feel so much better!

Family, Farm Life

Pink Sparkly Cake

February 25, 2014June 21, 2014 Jessica

Sometimes in life, there are blessings you have to just be patient and wait for. You know, those things you want so badly and then you finally get them. Our third child was that way for me. We had 2 wonderful, healthy kids but I just knew we were not done. The husband on the other hand, well it took more like 6 years to convince. By the time he said yes, my heart was exploding with joy. When our sweet Garner Reese joined our lives, we were all (the big kids included) just beside ourselves. She was so perfect and amazing!

I honestly can’t believe it has now been 2 years since she arrived! She has kept us laughing and smiling every day for these last 2 years. She is truly a joy. She talks our ears off, has the wildest imagination, and really does say the funniest things. Her facial expressions are sometimes just too much. She is smart- yes I know, everyone thinks their kid is smart, so I am just one of those moms! She loves pink, babies, shoes (especially her pink cowgirl boots), chocolate, playing with her big brother and sister, and puppies.

In the week leading up to her birthday, I asked her “Garner what do you want for your birthday?” she yells “CAKE” Well, that is easy enough right!? I said “oh ok, just cake!” and she said “ummmm….. pink cake…… with sparkles” Really? This little lady who is a few weeks shy of turning two just requested pink, sparkly cake? Well ok then!

I had already planned the party. I had decided to go “Simple and cheap” Well, if you know me, simple doesn’t usually work for me, even when I try. I was going to make a few simple decorations and bake some cupcakes myself. The invite list was a little long….. So, it ended up being bigger then I planned, and I spent way more time and money on it then I would have liked. The day of the party, we had some unexpected bumps and all the things I had planned didn’t happen, BUT, she had a blast and that is what matters, right!?!?

Here are the details. We decided to go with a Farm Fresh theme. She LOVES our farm animals and that her daddy takes her to see them all. She kind of loves her daddy.a little.tiny.bit.

Farm animals don’t always do what you ask them to, so the photo shoot for the invitations was not what I had hoped, but they turned out adorable any way.

We decided to rent a location for the party because weather is unpredictable this time of year and we weren’t sure if we would be able to do an outside farm animal party. We basically had one big room with tables and chairs and plenty of room for the kids to run and play.

The cupcakes (my crazy self made a little over 100 of these….. yes I am nuts and I will not ever attempt that again!) They are not perfect but they tasted pretty good so I guess was a win. AND, The icing was pink, with sparkles so Garner was happy! I just brought crates to stack the cupcakes on, a framed invitation, an adorable sign I painted/helped paint at Cross My Art, and a lace table cloth. I used a fancy paper cutter to make the cupcake toppers and cupcake wrappers. Luckily, my good friend The Cookbook Queen has all kinds of helpful things, like the fancy paper cutter I can borrow, sparkle for the cupcakes, AND amazing recipes for frosting!

Garner was not so sure about everyone singing to her. She kind of just looked a little nervous, but then blew that candle out and started enjoying that pink sparkly cupcake she had been waiting on so patiently.

I also used the fancy paper cutter for this banner. The lighting in this room is terrible, but you get the idea. I used some vintage looking papers on the banner.

So what did we do for entertainment? Oh My list was long- but then I got tired and gave up. I ended up with two planned activities, which were both so simple but I figured I was trying to appeal to 2 year olds, so it was ok. The first one I had seen on pinterest. Basically you blow up balloons, and make them look like pigs. We did this very simply by cutting out snouts and drawing eyes and a tail on with a sharpie. Then you put them all in the “pig pen”. The idea is that we scatter the pigs and the kids have to hurry and get them back in the pen. BUT, the kids had so much fun with the balloons before we played the game, that we never played the game. Oh well!

The other activity was custom coloring sheets that I purchased off etsy. The kids seemed to love them too. I paid $5 for 4 and ordered them from this shop.

Garner had so much fun with everyone. She smiled non stop! She is still talking about her birthday party!

My sweet friend made Garner’s birthday outfit for me and it looked so cute on her! I am just so thankful for this precious gift! She is truly a blessing to us!

Celebrate Recovery, Encouragement, Family, My Story

Making others change?

February 19, 2014September 17, 2015 Jessica

What is wrong with people??? I mean really, people just seemed to be imperfect, sheesh, what is their problem? Why can’t they just do what I see is right and good? Why are people always hurting others, including myself? Why doesn’t anyone see ME over here?? Why doesn’t my husband just change? He admits his faults but then he just keeps on staying the same. I am always here for everyone and no one is ever here for me………

That may have been my thought process (and don’t get me wrong, I can find myself caught up in that thought process again sometimes). Admitting how ridiculous I sounded is hard, but its the truth. I really was constantly frustrated with everyone. So, again, this is a CR plug, but once I started CR I realized I was in some major denial. First of all, as badly as I wanted to control everyone else and make others see they needed change, I couldn’t do that and in fact realized how much I really did need change myself. Secondly, I have crazy high expectations for myself, which in turn make my expectations of everyone else extremely high too.

I am reading a book right now called Marriage Minute by Dave & Ashley Willis. I read this quote “Don’t focus on improving your marriage. Focus on improving yourself, serving your spouse and growing daily in your relationship with God and your marriage will start improving on its own.” Today reading that I smile and nod, because I know it to be so true! But back a few months ago, I would not have agreed. I would have rolled my eyes and said “Whatever! That is dumb, the only way MY marriage will be better is if HE chooses to do things different.”

I finally saw that I was actually causing a lot of problems by trying to “fix” everything. all the time. everyday. every hour. I would say the same things over and over. Complain about the same things over and over. I always thought I was helping, communicating my feelings, telling him what I needed. This all seemed so healthy.

I did slowly start seeing things that I needed to change about the way I handled issues, but what really changed is that I finally decided that even though it didn’t make sense to me and my very misguided view of things, I was going to just stop being the way I was. What I had been doing hadn’t worked in the past. Ever. So, I stopped. I stopped spewing every thought I had at Joel. I stopped telling him every.single.time. I thought he was messing up. I stopped trying to make him do everything MY way. I stopped being a bitter, over reactive, controlling wife.

I started praying about all of it. I started praying when I was upset with Joel instead of immediately telling him. I started journaling my thoughts, sometimes in letter form to Joel, but I never showed him. I would type it out, then I would pray and ask God to help direct me. Sometimes it meant I didn’t say anything about it but other times it meant that I would have a discussion with him much later about what had happened.

Guess what happened??? Our marriage started drastically changing. The more I focused on myself in my recovery, and my relationship with God, the more things started changing. Suddenly I felt so differently about my husband. I felt like he was willing to listen to me and I actually saw him start making a lot of really positive change and I wasn’t asking him to do it. I was so proud of the new turn our lives were taking!

No, things aren’t perfect. My husband didn’t magically stop making mistakes and neither did I. Our life isn’t all sunshine and we still have so much to work on, individually and as a couple, but we see positive change! Recovery is a process. There are days and weeks where things are right on track. Then there are days and weeks where we have to stop and refocus. We like to call it imperfect progress at CR.

I am choosing to be different. Choosing to turn my will over to God daily. We all have a choice and no one said it would be easy but I will tell you, it is amazingly rewarding! I love what God is doing in my life! God is doing something BIG in my life- does that make me special? Well of course, but anyone can experience God moving in their life too. We just have to choose to let him work in our lives, rather then trying to make our lives work for us.

Celebrate Recovery- For ANYONE with hurts, habits, or hangups. It is a choice you won’t regret!

Celebrate Recovery, Encouragement, Family, My Story

I’ve got to start somewhere

February 3, 2014September 17, 2015 Jessica

I keep struggling with where to start on all of the things I want to share. I feel like being fully transparent is something God has asked me to do. I have decided to start today by just sharing a written version of my short video testimony that was played at Momentum Church 2 weeks ago. I will continue to share my struggles and go deeper into my story, but it is way to much for one post or even 10! I love music and this song just keeps speaking to me. Through all of this, I just pray that all the glory is given to God through me sharing my journey.

6 months ago……

The alarm goes off, I get out of bed, and I try to decide to be happy, but I am not. I know that I can’t be happy because nothing will go right. I know that what I planned to do will not happen. Something will get in the way. I wanted to have coffee with my husband but he is running late. I wanted to start school on time but the kids are not cooperating. I thought we had plenty of time to leave the house and get where we were going without being late. I just knew I had 2 sticks of butter for this recipe but I only have 1.

Disappointment……. Not only did I anticipate it, I lost it almost every time things were not going well. Maybe you can relate? This caused my mood to be ill almost all the time. I allowed these negative thoughts to take a hold of my day, I allowed this mind set to suck the joy out of my day. I would loose it over the smallest things. I would find myself with uncontrollable emotions over things like my kids not doing things as quickly as I would like, not being able to find a shoe, or my child simply having an accident that I needed to clean up. I found myself constantly feeling guilty for my behavior towards my husband and my children.

How about relationships? I continuously over evalutated every conversation I had. I came up with all kinds of reasons why people disliked me. I would decide that I was unworthy and unwanted. Then after a period of feeling very hurt, would come anger. I was angry because I wanted to be loved and felt no one cared about me, and it just wasn’t fair. So my relationships suffered. I did this with everyone. I couldn’t imagine for a second that someone really cared for me or about me.

I knew I had “issues”. I had known this for years. I always thought because my issues weren’t BIG that I could handle them. That prayer, reading my bible, doing devotionals, and going to church were going to be enough to overcome them. But I was wrong. I finally gave in, and decided to go to Celebrate Recovery. It has been the most eye opening choice I have made. I have begun the healing process. A process that has been nothing short of amazing, emotional, difficult, and rewarding. I see a change in me that I didn’t even know was possible!

I have been able to find peace and hope in trusting Jesus with all of my stuff. Admitting all my faults, and realizing that although hurts from past played a part in a lot of my unhealthy emotional habits, that ultimately it was up to me to be a healthy person. It is my choice to surrender and overcome.

I have not overcome every issue I have and I know that it will always be a process, but I have found that when I turn my will over daily, I am a new person! I am starting to see a huge change in my relationships. I am able to be a more loving, understanding, wife mother, and friend. I also see progress with the way I view myself, which is helping me in so many areas of my life. I see a huge difference in the way I am able to handle stressful situations. Before now, I was always allowing every stress in my life to consume me and cause me to become angry, upset, and resentful. Now I am able to stop and see good, even when things are not perfect!

Today, I can honestly say that I do not have any less stress. In fact, the past few months our family has faced a lot of unexpected stresses. I feel as though working through these healing steps have prepared me to respond to these stressful situations in a healthy way, rather then allowing my irrational, unhealthy thoughts and reactions to take over. These steps have taught me a healthy way to process, heal, and honestly just live life!

Cleft Lip, Family, My Story

Our Baby boy

January 31, 2014June 21, 2014 Jessica

I finally feel like it is time to share some information about our baby boy. It has been something I have hesitated to share so publicly, simply because we just didn’t know enough. But I truly feel a calling in my life to be transparent about everything, which is part of the reason I am starting this blog.

In December we had a routine ultrasound to make sure our little boy was growing properly and that everything was as it should be. We were able to see that he had a cleft lip. At that point we didn’t know much beyond that. Suddenly a wealth of information was available. There were so many “could be’s” and unknowns. For 5 weeks we just prayed and ultimately gave it all to God. We found out about the Cleft Clinic at Arkansas Children’s hospital and made an appointment for a prenatal consult. We also were able to schedule another ultrasound for 27 weeks.

2 weeks ago we had that 27 week ultrasound and were able to see this precious baby more clear. He is so perfect and beautiful! We were told that ultrasounds don’t do a great job at diagnosing cleft palate, but from what they can see it does appear that he does not have a cleft palate. His cleft lip also looks very narrow which is great!

Wednesday we were able to meet with the team at Children’s. They were wonderful. They had an overwhelming amount of information to give and we are thankful to have it all. At this point there are still so many unknowns that we will not know until he is born. We know the first year of his life is going to be a little crazy, full of trips to ACH, and at least one surgery. There is so much more to a cleft lip/palate then we could have ever imagined. The good news is, no matter what it is, they can fix it! We know that the diagnosis could have been much worse and we are thankful that it is not. We fully trust God with all of this!

Now we are just looking forward to meeting our sweet little Harvey Powell!

Family, My Story

Here we are!

January 30, 2014June 21, 2014 Jessica

Here we are, starting 2014 and I am trying my hand at this blogging thing again. I have so many fabulous things to say and share and feel like it is just time I stop depriving people and get it out there!

To sum up our sweet little family, we are living in a work in progress farm house that we LOVE! My husband’s dream is to be a farmer, but we are just wanna be’s right now. We have dogs, cats, a rabbit, a pig and chickens. Also living on the farm are some cows and a goat. More on that later.

We have 3 children. Kamden is our oldest, He is 10 and is the little man of the house. He loves legos, minecraft, building things, working outside, and all the animals we have have. He is a super cool kiddo. Jade is our middle child, she is 8.5 (you can not forget the .5) She is momma’s helper. She loves learning to do “mommy things” like cooking, cleaning, and taking care of her little sister. She is the biggest help! She also loves dolls, crafts, and creating. She has the biggest heart! Garner Reese is the baby (for now), is about to turn 2 and is such a joy. She has the a bubbly personality that keeps us laughing at her all the time. She talks non-stop, loves coloring, babies, and following around her big brother and sister. Harvey Powell has not made his appearance yet so his bio will be coming soon.

We homeschool the kids and love being able to do that. We are always pursuing healthier eating habits and hope to continue to find ways to cut out all the awful things that are in convenience food. We enjoy having a garden, and cooking and baking from scratch.

Joel and I have been married a little over 10 years and have never been happier. We have found that life just keeps getting better. I don’t know that it has ever been easy, and don’t think it ever will be, but we sure enjoy the journey! We love God, our church family, and look forward to whatever is to come!