It's Not a Luxury

I try not to get all caught up in political arguments. Rarely do they stay civil or is anyone influenced to change by them. But there has been a lot of talk recently that has gotten me "worked up." I'm referring to the talk about stay-at-home moms (SAHMs). I don't want to get into all the gory details of who said what and my party is better than your party. There are two things I want to address.

1. Being a SAHM is work.

2. It's not a luxury, it's a choice.

People who think being a SAHM is not work have obviously never tried it. Sure it's fun to be home with your kids on your days off work. Sure it's fun to be together on vacations. Try being home with them every single day of every single week of every single month of the year. I'm not saying it's not fun. On the contrary it can be the most precious moments of your life. But it is not ALL fun and games. When you are the one home with your child all day you are the one who deals with every request, whine, fit, grumpy moment, dirty diaper, attempting to potty train, cleaning up the accidents, cleaning bubbles off the floor, fighting with them to eat their lunch, on and on it goes. Of course, you do get the flip side of that as well. My point is, though, you are the one there for every single thing. After a while it can wear you out. You also play, draw, color, teach, snuggle, etc. while also trying to keep a house, cook dinner, shop for groceries, study for Bible class, oh, and be a wife as well. I know women who work outside the home do many of these things also. But think about it this way, if taking care of children is not work, why do people get paid to keep other people's kids?

Staying home with my child is not a luxury, it is a choice. In fact, it is sometimes a sacrifice. My husband makes much less than $162,000 a year, but we make it just fine on one salary. How? We have one nice car instead of two. We have a house that is nice, but not more than we can afford. It is not new. It is not perfect. But it had enough rooms for us to sleep in our own rooms (plus one for future growth) and spend time together, which is the point of all this anyhow. Right? We don't go on lots of vacations (some years we don't go anywhere unless it's to stay with friends). We don't go to the movies every weekend or out to eat every night. We don't have all the gadgets and toys that we'd like to have. We don't get new clothes as often as we'd like. We don't eat steak every night (or every week for that matter). We don't belong to any country club. We don't have fancy jewelry. Reagan doesn't have every toy under the sun (just half of them it seems. :) ) At Christmas we spend less than we'd like. But you know what? We have everything we NEED and more. All of that extra stuff is not worth me not spending the precious time I have with my daughter. We give up the extras for what we feel is more important. Me being home with our child.

Here are a couple of quotes from Dr. Laura Schlessinger's "In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms."

"SAHMs are not SAHMs because they're lucky, stupid, lazy, weak, scared, useless, spoiled, frightened, or any other condescending description. SAHMs are SAHMs because they realize the blessing of the opportunity to make a profound difference in their own lives, their families, their communtiy, and ultimately the world as they coordinate the lives of their family members so that no one feels neglected, unimportant, or unloved because of the limited commitment of their parents."

"Frankly, one of the greatest blessings in life is to learn to be content with and fulfilled by the small, simple things in life; after all, these make up the majority of the human experience."

I don't stay home because I'm too dumb to do anything else. I had a 9.975 gpa in high school. I graduated in the top 10 percent of my class. I made a 28 on my ACT. I have a BS in Family and Consumer Science with an emphasis in Interior Design. I graduated college Cum Laude. Like I said, I'm not too dumb, maybe I'm just too smart. :)

I'm not trying to give myself or my child every thing this life has to offer. I don't want her to think the big house and expensive things are what are important.

I stay home because I want to be there for every important moment in my child's life. I want to be the one who teaches her what's right and what's wrong. I'm trying to raise my daughter in the "nuture and admontion of the Lord." (Ephesians 6:4) One day I want it to be said that my children "rise up and call her blessed."(Proverbs 31:28) One day I want to be one of the older women that can "admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God my not be blasphemed." (Titus 2:4,5)

To me, being a stay at home mom isn't a luxury. In truth, it's not even a choice. It's a necessity.

Our Easter

I hope you all had a happy Easter! We had a great day filled with candy, eggs, and family!

First, we got our day started with Reagan's goodies left by the bunny. She was pretty excited. :)

We had 150 people at worship Sunday morning! Lots of family in visiting with various members. We also had some visitors, Jeremy and Blythe! If you don't know, they are friends of ours from Demopolis. They came in to Memphis to go to a concert the night before and then stayed at our house Saturday night and went to worship with us Sunday morning. It was so good to see them. We miss our Demopolis friends soooooo much!

After worship we jumped in the car and headed to Grandmommy and Grandaddy's (my grandparents) house. We had lunch with the great grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins and then celebrated the April birthdays. There are 6!

And, as you can see, they don't all behave for pictures. My grandmother said no one else is allowed to marry anyone born in April since we already have so many April bdays. :)

Then the main event, at least as far as the kids were concerned. The Easter egg hunt! Of course my mother had given Reagan a special egg hunting outfit with bunnies on it. And I put bunny ears on her so she will look back at pictures and say, "MOOOOooooom!"

It was her first time hunting eggs but she had lots of fun. She also had helpful uncles and a cousin who would carry eggs in their pockets and drop them near her so she could get some eggs. There was some fierce competition from her older fellow hunters. :) Some of the eggs had ants on or near them. She wouldn't touch them until we got them off or moved the egg away from them. Haha.

We had a great Easter! I hope you did too!

Happy to Me

This weekend was also a weekend of birthdays. While in Smyrna we also celebrated my grandfather's 75th birthday. He's a big golfer if you can't tell from the cake. :) Reagan and Annabelle got to help him blow out the candles.

Saturday we went to cousin Drake's 7th birthday party. They had a swimming party at an indoor pool at one of the hotels.

Reagan had a big time. She loved her cupcake with green icing. It even turned her teeth green.

Reagan LOVES to swim! She had so much fun swimming with Daddy and Drake!

With all of this singing "Happy Birthday" Reagan learned something new.

She's so cute. She just randomly starts singing it now. :) I love her.

A Great Man

Today I went to a service that honored my grandfather, Robert Mullins, for serving for 31 years as an elder in the Lord's Church. I've always thought my Pops was a great man, but it's amazing to hear others speak so highly of him as well. One of his good friends and fellow elders spoke about him. He used a Psalm to describe my grandfather. This Psalm already had a special meaning to me, but now I will remember it for this as well.

The 15th Psalm

LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?

He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.

He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.

In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the LORD. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.

He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.

How wonderful would it be to be described in this way? I hope I can be like him.

My March Madness

Ok, so it's been a while and a lot of "madness" has been going on. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. :) I'll give you a few short posts to update on all that the Paschall's have been up to.

Towards the end of March I got a text that my lovely cousin Erin was in TN! I've talked about her before, but if you don't know, we were born 10 days apart and did a lot of growing up together. She now lives in NYC so we don't get to see each other much. Now that we are back in TN we get to see her when she does pop in. We went over to our grandparents' house so we could hang out for a little while. Reagan loves her as all children do. She's a nanny so she's great with kids. :)

It was sooooo good to see her! I'm hoping Justin and I can get up to NYC for a visit in the next couple of years.

While basketball fans look forward all year to March Madness I look forward to this even more. The last week of March we went to the Memphis School of Preaching Lectureship. We look forward to this week so much! It's such and uplifting week. We get the opportunity to listen to great men preaching the gospel and I love getting to be in the ladies' sessions. We always get our batteries recharged. I think most people don't realize that preachers need to be recharged just as much as the rest of us. They spend all of their time speaking and rarely get to be spoken to. MSOP has such wonderful speakers who are great students of the God's word. In fact, you can listen to the lectures if you are interested. The Online Academy of Biblical Studies has all of the men's lectures. I wish they had the women's as well so I could listen to them again and again. Justin actually got to speak at the youth day they have the Saturday before the lectures begin. The audio from it is on there too. He was awesome, of course. He's my favorite preacher. :)

It's also a great week because we get to see all of our friends that were at the school the same time we were, see other friends, and get to make new ones. It's always a blessing to be around people who are like-minded. They also have classes for children 5 and under so that mom's can actually sit and listen to a sermon for a change. Reagan had lots of fun hanging out with her future best friend and/or husband Benjamin. :)

When we took her to class we showed her that he was there and she said, "BEN!!!!" She adores him and I was so glad she had a friend in her class.

If Ben doesn't work out or she's into slightly younger men, there's always Brody! She loves him too, as you can see. :)

She also got to hang out with and meet new friends. She absolutely fell in love with Kenadie.

The great thing about this is that she only lives 30 minutes away so we will have to schedule some play dates!

I already miss my friends and wish we had more excuses to get together more often!

Another bonus to the lectureship is that many bookstores set up and sell books. I bought several books! I'll cover more of them as I go through them, but the one I am currently reading is "Loving Your Husband" by Patsy Loden. I've just started the study but it's been great so far. There is a lot of scripture and it's actually a workbook. You answer questions as you go, memorize verses, and there is even homework. I'm really looking forward to really getting into this study.

I always take away a lot from the lectureship, but this year I really got motivated to make some changes I've been needing to make for a while. It will take some time and a lot of effort, but what good things don't? Pray for me as I am working to be a better wife, mother, and Christian. I can always use it!

Day 5

Day 5 of 30 days of music is a song that reminds you of someone. This is one of the first ones I thought of. It's kind of appropriate since Mom is here with us this week. When I was little Mom would always sing this to us. And embarrass us in front of our friends while we were trying to be "cool." Something I'm sure I'll take much joy in doing to Reagan some day. :) It became a running joke and every time we told her she was crazy she started singing it. I can't hear it without thinking of her. I'm sure she'll sing it to Reagan and all of her other future grandchildren some day and they'll think she's crazy too. :)

Mom, this one's dedicated to you.

Crazy by Patsy Cline

Reagan's New Toy

This past weekend we had a visit from my mom and stepdad. Mom wanted to get one last visit in before she has hip surgery Monday because she doesn't know when she'll be able to travel again. Reagan and I are planning on going up to Tennessee next week to help out some. Mom brought Reagan a new toy. It's one of those toys that the baby stands behind and pushes. Reagan LOVES it! Here are a couple of cute videos of her playing with it.

Here she is pushing it around...forward and sideways. :)

Here she is dancing to the music it plays, jabbering, and standing up on her own a little bit.

She's been learning lots of new things! She has taken her first few steps and I promise to post a video of it soon!

Meet Murphy the Horse...I mean Dog

Meet Murphy. He's my Mom's horse...I mean dog.

You might be saying, "He doesn't look like a horse." And to that I say, "Scroll on down for a little perspective."

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He's ginormous!!!

Here I am playing tug of war with Murphy...

And here I am losing.

Reagan, meet Murphy.

Murphy really liked Reagan.

But he wouldn't give her a pony ride like I'd hoped.

Brettimus Gets His Diploma

Last weekend we made a trip to TN to see my youngest brother, Brett, graduate from the University of Tennessee at Martin. He got a B. S. in Criminal Justice. We got to see lots of family. Both sets of my grandparents were there as well as my parents and the middle brother, Robby. Of course, everyone was excited to see Reagan...and I guess Justin and me as well. :)

And of course my youngest brother wears his sunglasses around his neck while graduating. lol I didn't even notice until I was going through the pictures.

Getting his "diploma." Also known as the fake little piece of rolled up paper that says "Congrats, your real diploma's in the mail." :)

He spotted his stalkerazzi.

Dad, Robby, Brett, Justin, Reagan (passed out), Me, Gran Gran, and Pops.

Brett with Grandmama and Grandaddy.

The only one of just the 3 of us where both boys are behaving. It's really hard to get them to act right for a picture!

Bubba, Mom, and the 3 crazies.

Brett's sweet girlfriend Caitlyn. She annoys me because she's always so cute in pictures. :)

Brett borrowed my cap and gown, which were actually Justin's cap and gown before that. Notice the year...2005. That would be the year I graduated from UTM. Brett was too cheap to go buy a new tassel. lol At least I bought my won tassel and didn't reuse Justin's!

Brett, welcome to the world of adulthood...oh wait, you have to get a job and move back out of Mom's house first. But then, welcome to adulthood. ;)

Just a Couple of Beach Bums

Ok, people. I'm finally writing about our trip to Panama City Beach, Florida! :) My mom and my aunt Patti were planning a trip and were kind enough to invite Reagan and I along. The two of them came to our house on the 18th and we all drove down together the next day. What map quest said was a 5 hour 5 minute trip took us 8 hours... There was a ton of construction. We had to slow to 45 in almost every construction zone. Then add in stopping for lunch and feeding a baby, and not having a clue where the hotel was. Patti claimed to know the way. Next time we will have printed directions! :) lol Love you Patti!

Reagan and I stayed until Thursday and headed home after lunch. We did have a really great time. Traveling with a baby is never really relaxing, especially when your super helpful hubby is at home (boo). Reagan decided that she didn't want to sleep in at all. She woke up at 5:45 one day, 6:15 another day, and 7 the next. But it was good just to get away from the normal for a couple of days and play. Plus the fact that the beach is my favorite place on earth to be. Even if it's cloudy and windy it's still gorgeous. I think the beach is the most beautiful of Gods landscapes. It's one of those things you just have to see for yourself to appreciate fully. Pictures and paintings just never quite live up to how beautiful it really is. You can't ever capture the colors perfectly.

This was Reagan's second time at the beach, but the first time that she could do more than sleep through it. Here is one of the few pictures of her in her hat. She wouldn't keep it on for anything.

She really enjoyed looking around and taking it all in. It was pretty windy the first day and she loved it. For some reason she thinks wind in her face is hilarious.

She started crawling towards me and hit the sand. She immediately stopped and looked at her hands. She couldn't figure out what in the world that stuff was! :)

The water was I really cold so we only stuck her feet in for a minute. First she sucked her breath in when the water hit her. Then she said, "Oooh!" Then she fussed. End of ocean. :)

She absolutely loved the pool! It was the first time she's ever been in one. She was kicking her little feet like she was swimming. She can already swim better than her daddy! :) (He dog paddles feverishly then sinks to the bottom if he tries to tread water. I've seriously tried and tried to teach him but I think it might be impossible!) She loved it so much she cried when we took her out of the water.

And, of course, she wouldn't be Reagan without trying to eat someone's face!

The next day was much more sunny so we stayed under the umbrella!

This was the view from our balcony! We were 20 floors up.

Thanks Patti for letting us come along!

I have to talk about something I ate while we were there. I love food. When I travel food is always a big part of the experience. If I tell you about my trip to New Orleans I'll tell you about the red beans and rice I had there. If I tell you about my trip to New York City I'll tell you about this awesome brunch sandwich I had at a Mexican restaurant there. When I think about our time living in Memphis I think about all the great restaurants we went to there and my favorite dishes. I am a lover of seafood. Part of my joy of going to the beach is getting fresh seafood. We ate at a place called the Salt Water Grill. I highly recommend eating there if you ever go to Panama City Beach. I had what was quite possibly the best meal in my life. It was Pan Seared Diver Sea Scallops. It came with Parmesan risotto, fresh cooked spinach, tomato salsa, and extra virgin olive oil. I wish I had taken a picture of it because it was a beautiful plate! The risotto and olive oil covered the bottom of the plate. Four huge sea scallops sat neatly on top of the risotto with the spinach and tomato salsa (which I would describe as Italian pico) in the middle. When I took the first bite I literally groaned and said, "Wow, this is good!" I think every time I took a bite I said out loud that it was ridiculously good. My mom kept laughing at me because I was taking a breath and closing my eyes after every bite. The scallops were seasoned perfectly. The spinach was cooked thoroughly but was not mushy. The tomato salsa was amazing. The only thing I didn't finish eating was the risotto because I just couldn't fit it all in! I can still taste it right now thinking about it. It wasn't a cheap meal, but it was completely worth it! I don't mind paying for food when it's that good! I want to go back to Panama City Beach just to eat that meal again! I don't know what it is about food, but just thinking about this meal makes me feel so relaxed and satisfied...except for the fact that now I'm hungry because I've been thinking about it. Fortunately it's lunch time. :)

Playing Dress Up

This weekend we made a trip to Tennessee. We left Thursday afternoon when Justin finished work and came home last night. It was a quick trip. We managed to see all 4 grandparents (which is a feat), even though we only saw Justin's mom for a few minutes outside of her work. The purpose of this trip was to pick out bride's maids dresses for Meeka's wedding. Meeka is Justin's youngest sister. She's getting married in October. She's the total opposite of a bridezilla. She let us pick whatever dress we wanted. We each (there are 3 of us) are wearing different dresses in the same color and a sash in another color. I love my dress! I took my camera but forgot to get someone to take a picture :( but if you are interested you can see it here. I will also be getting a short sleeved bolero jacket to wear over it so I will be comfortable and modest. It's really hard to find a modest bride's maid dress. When Keila (Justin's other sister) was trying on one that ended up being really low cut they said they can put in a modesty panel. If they would just make them modest in the first place you wouldn't have to worry about it! Moving on :)
The colors are the ones shown in the picture of the dress and the jacket will match the dress color.I had it all planned out before we went, but none of the dresses I had looked at online looked good on me:( I hate when that happens, but I'm kind of glad it did because I really like the one I picked out.
Meeka had planned to try on some dresses too just to see how different styles fit her. She had no intentions of buying. She had seen one dress on the internet that she liked and then saw another bride try it on while we were there. She tried it on and said, "I'm gonna get it. This is my dress." It was the only one she tried on because she was so in love with it. She got teary, her dad got teary, Keila got teary, and Justin got teary. It was so sweet to see them all so excited for her. I only took one picture all weekend and it is of Meeka in her dress so you can't see it! :)
Dress shopping was so much fun. I love playing dress up!!!

Trip to Tennessee and More Birthday Celebrations for Me!

The 3rd through the 6th we were in Tennessee for a few days. When we arrived there was still snow on the ground from a big snow they had gotten a couple of days before. It was the first time for Reagan to see snow. We took Justin's dad his car back. He had let us borrow it after Justin's wreck.

On the 4th Justin had to appear in court for a ticket he got for the wreck. The judge wanted him to come to traffic school to tell his story so some of the people there for car seat violations would realize how quickly things can happen and that they need to put their kids in their seats so they will be safe. (It really ticks me off when people don't put kids in car seats...anyway.) But since Justin drove all the way from Alabama to make the court appearance he decided that was punishment enough and threw out the ticket. After court we went to see my dad. We went up to the middle school he is the principal at, which is also the middle school I attended. Reagan got to meet some of my teachers. :) Then we hung out at Dad's for a while and they took us out to dinner.

On the 5th, Justin's dad took us out for my birthday(which was in January) since he had not seen us since before then. We went to my favorite sushi place, Sakura, in Jackson, TN.

On the 6th, my Mom's family had their usual birthday gathering. They usually get together once a month and celebrate the birthdays of everyone who has one that month. My grandmother's birthday is in February so we did ours together. My cousin, Erin, also has a January birthday, but she lives in NYC so she wasn't there. :(

After that, we headed back to AL.

Whew! Lots of stuff in just a few days! On our way home Justin's dad called and told him he just totalled the car we brought back to him.. I think we drove it more than he did. On top of that, right after we got home we found out Justin's childhood friend died in a car accident and he drove back to do the funeral on the 9th. Our new car now has over 2,000 miles on it. But hey, that's what cars are for! :)

Reagan's official first time seeing snow.

"Daddy, why is Mommy making me touch this cold stuff?"

Yes, folks, that's my husband. His Dad doesn't look too amused either. :)

Late Birthday dinner with the Paschall's.

The good looking end of the table. :)

Birthday lunch at a Mexican restaurant. That's what I'm talkin about!

The birthday girls, minus Erin.

Can't you tell he loves me so much.

Uncle Brett kept whining for us to pick her up because she was drooling on his shirt. Her response, "Fine then, I'll just squeeze your nose." :)

Reagan decided this was a good way to entertain herself when we stopped to eat on the way home. Yes, my child is chewing a sock.

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Reagan and I have not been feeling too well. Last night her fever got up to 101.8, but it is down around 99 now. I'm really hoping we feel better today! We are already going to have to miss church tonight and I really don't want to miss the Lady Vols game we are supposed to go to in Tuscaloosa tomorrow! Also, today Reagan is 6 months so I'm really going to try to get a 6 month post done today. So far she's not really been up for making cute pictures, so we'll just have to see. :/ You may get a picture of a pretty pitiful looking little girl instead.