Why We Move

Hubby has been trying to convince me for months now that he absolutely needs a boat. This is funny to me because isn't he on the spending fast too? And isn't buying a boat a terrible investment considering we are landlocked by cornfields? And in what world will he be spending his one day off of work frolicking out on the water instead of home taking care of the babies so I don't emotionally self-destruct and run away?

So now he is starting to shift towards getting a kayak . The best reason I've heard yet is, "Babe, it could be 'our thing.' And this is even funnier because I am well aware that a kayak holds only ONE person. But in all seriousness, this leads me to my next point which is something we are always talking about: what is 'our thing?' This has been a point of insecurity as I hear about other couples biking and learning Arabic and gardening together. We have tried camping (I am allergic to grass), hunting (I fell through a beaver dam), and fishing (I caught more fish and we fought about it).

Mike and I have almost nothing in common except we are both blonde, our favorite food is guacamole, and we love Jesus. When we got married, I was freaked out because this is where the similarities ended, and to note, I am not even a natural blonde so we really just had two things in common. Four years of marriage and self-discovery, and we have learned these are our 'things:'

1. Cheesecake Factory-- it's our goal to taste everything on the menu

2. Trying different types of red wine from the Walmart 

3. Being parents together is totally one of our things  

And finally to end the discussion about the boat/kayak, I flat out told him to get over it, because it appears that our ultimate 'thing' is moving and he better get on board with it because that's what we're going to be spending the next 5 weekends doing. Sigh.

Moving... this is our 'thing' forever, and ever, amen. 

I am 95% writing this post for myself, because we are moving again and I am not sure why. My mom is out of town so I can’t verbally process with her. So, "greetings" dear reader, here is my drama, pull up a chair and stay a while.

This is the main reason we move, we fight to keep moments like this happening on a daily basis:

Mike traveled for a year. Lou was three-months-old when he started going on the road. At first there was something exciting about being able to watch whatever I wanted on TV night after night (Hello Nashville!) But evenings of popcorn and jellybeans for dinner lost their luster and we decided things needed to change, so we started making kale chips. And in regards to moving, Mike got sick of living in hotels and I did not particularly like crying on the floor all the live long day and seeing Lou look out the window searching for dada's truck. Adding to the stressful situation, when she was five-months-old we found out we were pregnant with Mack. It was then that I "called it," saying this lifestyle was not sustainable for our marriage (a nice way of saying if we continue at this, I may not like you anymore). We found a great couple willing to rent our home so that we were able to follow Mike to his next job. 

These are the main reasons I am willing to pack up our home, potentially every year, to follow my husband around the wide expanse that is the Midwest.

      Mike loves his job. Isn’t it just the best to watch the people you love do what they love? The cliche saying goes: "If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." That is precious. (So, who out there loves changing diapers and cooking three meals a day? Not I, said the fly!) But Mike does love his career. It is his calling. And I find that seriously awesome. Most days, my husband comes home completely spent, mentally and physically. But he never complains. When we talk about finding something more "normal," I can sense this is not where God has us right now. Every job under the sun has its pro’s and con’s. Some people’s spouse come home at 5 pm every day but they may hate their jobs. Many partners travel all the time, live months of the year overseas, spend weekends on the road, or work the late-shift. We know many, many people who struggle to find work right now. I look at our life, Mike's schedule and the instability of it all, and I can say "it is well" because he has work and I am deeply grateful. 

      I love Mike. To me, it is worth it to be lonely and friendless in a new town to see my husband at the end of the day. Even if it's just staring at him from across the table while he shoves food into his mouth. And eventually, I do make other friends, I always have because I am desperate for people and deep connection and am not afraid to say so. So even if at first, it's me and the babes sun-up to sun-down, at least I have that face-to-face connection with my best friend every night. What works for our family may not work for another, and I do not consider myself a better wife because I move for my husband. Other families may not function well doing this, heck we don't even function well moving so often but it is worth it. Many families within Mike's company do not do this method because they have deep roots in their towns, kids in school, families nearby, and the wife may have a career worth settling down for. So we are more like vagabond hippies, one step away from buying a VW camper (our plan before we found out we were pregnant with Mack, a viable option with one child not two) and Heaven knows I could go for weeks without showering and get myself talked into joining a cult so this nomad lifestyle works for me as well. I love change, I get a little stir-crazy if I'm in one place for a while. Just a few weeks ago I spent hours trying to talk hubby into moving our family to Burundi to build medical clinics with this amazing organization. We could make it in the bush, we've been doing a spending fast for three months, totally the same thing. Electricity? Over-rated. Then Mike reminded me what life was like when we didn't have a dishwasher and how dramatic I was about it and how I made him share a plate and fork with me every meal to minimize clean-up. 

Okay, so Iowa it is, and he promises me it will be just as exciting as Africa.

      Life is hard and God is good. This is my motto until I die. Seriously. It is the lens through which I look at the world and its terrible difficulties, all of which are much worse than packing up your crap and moving to a new town. But there is much we lose by moving- deep friendships forged through tears and postpartum depression, a Gospel-centered church (which is so, so hard to find), the familiar faces I love to see and talk to at the doctor's office, the grocery store, the coffee shop. My daughter adores her friends here. She prays for them at every meal, goes to bed at night asking me, "Who we gonna see tomorrow?" Lou runs around the nursery, library, gym looking for their little faces and yelling their names. There is so much sweetness in familiarity, we have loved learning and falling into the rhythms of this small town. I kid you not, I so often drive through the McDonald's that one day the high school boy who works the cashier window said to me, "I haven't seen you for a while, maybe since last Monday? I saw your car and knew you were here for your caramel sundae." Adorable, so I called my best friend Betsy to tell her how cute living in a small town is. And I subsequently called my husband and gave him a detailed description of this fellow just in case I went missing.

I was more scared to be a stay-at-home-mom than anything else I'd ever done. It was not my dream. But slowly, the friends I've met here and the little routine we have built taught me to love and thrive in this new role. More than I thought possible. I am a better wife, a better mother, and a better friend because of our year spent here.  

There is pain for us in moving. Particularly this time. But I trust God. And as always, I cling to His word:

"Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed. For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning. I say to myself, The Lord is my portion, therefore, I will wait for Him.'" 

-Lamentations 3:22-23

But did I mention we hire a moving crew? Yep this is them, they are professionals. Not the most reliable, but they are expert stashers of all things. Why just yesterday, I noticed I was missing a whole shelf of books. This morning I opened my underwear drawer and there they were. Can't wait to pack a zillion boxes with these two minions... 

The Story of Mack

Gather more than one mother together, and something will remind someone of their child’s birth story.

“Oh, you’re eating a sandwich? Let me tell you about how sandwiches remind me of when I was in labor with Penelope and I wanted to eat a sandwich. ” “You have a green shirt on today and it’s so funny that you’re wearing that because I was wearing green when my water broke with Micah…” 

Every birth story is amazing and miraculous and somewhat horrifying, and my story of Mack is all those things but, it is also slightly ridiculous.

We decided to move in February, on a whim, to follow Hubby to his next job. So we merrily packed our organized boxes and smiled and held hands and sang hymns and it was the best of times. False. But we got where we needed to be in order  to be closer to the next bridge project so that he would come home at night, so moving seemed like a major win.

Until, there was some kind of natural catastrophe that prevented said bridge from being started, so he worked on a different project that was even further from our new home (3 hours).

So there I was, 36 weeks pregnant and alone in a new city, terrified that I would go into labor and have to bring my one-year-old with me to the hospital because I had no friends to watch her, my family lived 5 hours away, and Hubby only came home on weekends. I explained this to my newest and bestest friend in town, the OB nurse, and asked her if I could have her number so I could call her in the middle of the night if I needed to. True story.

There was ONE week that worked in our timeline for Mack to be born, the week my mom and sister, both teachers, had Spring Break and were visiting me. Thursday morning arrived, they were leaving Friday, and Hubby called from the other side of the state to ‘encourage things along:’

“Hey, it’d be really great if the baby came today because then I could take the weekend off and be around.”

Me: “What? Why? I'm not due for two weeks and the doctor said I don’t look ready to go anytime soon. And can’t you get a few days at home to help after he comes?” (The first time we were having a critical conversation, last minute of course, story of our marriage)

Him: “No, didn’t I tell you- I can’t take more than one day off because of how delayed this project is?”

I hung up on him.

I had no signs of labor at this point which was opposite from Lou where I walked around for weeks thinking she was about to just fall out of ‘there,’ huffing and puffing and yelling and saying, “This is IT, we should go the hospital!” And we went three times, no baby. I cried wolf so much that by the time we really DID need to go to the hospital, Mike didn’t believe me and I almost gave birth in our bedroom.

So my mom and sister took Lou to the park that March morning, I hung up on Hubs, and then I prayed, “So help me Jesus, I know this is not always how things work, but please bring this baby today.” I texted my prayer posse and asked them to pray too. And I KID YOU NOT, I had my first contraction.

But I was not sure it was actually a contraction so when my mom came back, I said, “Hey, let’s take a walk.” She gave me a suspicious look, I did not want to tell her I was in labor because I knew she would ask me lots of questions and jinx it. So we walked to the park. The one that was 10 blocks away. And when we got there, I said, “I think I’m just going to sit down for a minute.” Then on the way home, I had this crazy stomach "cramp" every five minutes, and I would have to stop and bend over and my mom would look at me all crazy-eyed.

Next I called my two baby mama’s who know lots more about labor then I ever will. The one we affectionately call the Baby Whisperer calmly said, “Yeahhhh, I had that too with my three. You will probably have it on and off for a few days.” Okay, bummer, but that made sense. Then I called my other (more erratic and dramatic friend, the one who had convinced me to go to the hospital 2 out of the 3 false alarms for Lou) and she said, “OH MY GOD. You’re having a stomach pain that makes you unable to walk everyone 5 minutes? YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE THAT BABY ON THE TOILET. GET TO THE HOSPITAL NOW.” And because I didn't want her to be mad at me, I believed her and called my husband and told him to start driving. The second miracle of the day.

I then decided to tell my mom that I “might be in labor.” I crawled around the bedroom floor, packing duffle bags for Hubby (and OF ALL THE THINGS, I forgot his socks, Heaven forbid, I heard about it the entire weekend).

I drove myself to the hospital, and it was a really nice Spring day. 60 degrees, sun shining, the perfect weather to take a little nap in the parking lot. That annoying stomach pain would wake me up, and then I would doze right back to sleep. Finally, I realized I was getting hungry and I had better check on this whole labor thing before I went to Jimmy John’s. I was about to get out of the car, but looked in the rear-view mirror. Sheesh! I looked rough! So I spent another 15 minutes sitting there, putting on my make-up because a woman’s gotta look presentable in case she has a baby.

I walked into the hospital and denied the wheelchair they offered me (because I was CLEARLY in labor and everyone else knew it but me) and walked myself to the OB department (ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HOSPITAL) stopping for a “breather” every now and then.

I arrived (30 minutes later) they checked me out, rushed the doctor in, and told me that baby was going to be there WITHIN AN HOUR. “Wait, what?!” So I called Baby Daddy and told him to drive realllly fast. And he did, and there are other details which would stress my current pregnant friends out but everything went “fine” (as fine as natural, unexpected childbirth can go) and as chill as ever, our precious baby came into the world.

 Michael Thomas, we call him Mack.

To this day, he is still chill as a cucumber (thank the Lord Jesus who brought Him to us because his sister is a traveling circus in a two-year-old’s body). Although, we will hold it against him that he woke up every 2 hours through the night until he was 10 months old...

Content, loving, snuggly, adorable Mack.

People warned me about having two babies close together-- after I was already pregnant—but the best thing in my life is watching these two toddle around all day.

Happy Birthday Mack!  

Wedding Favorites!

Last week, we celebrated (kind of) four years of marriage. We got married March 13th, 2010 in our hometown of Naperville, IL. We started dating at the end of high school. I decided to disobey my parent's wish for me to stay in-state and went to College of Charleston in South Carolina. Hubby played football at St. Ambrose in Davenport, Iowa (but later transferred to Missouri State, to pursue better fishing). We broke up after a year of doing the long-distance thing but stayed in touch and waited for the time to be right, which was seven years later. I am so thankful for the time I spent living in the Southeast and I know his experiences and friendships during those years shaped who he is today. 

But we could not wait to get married. He proposed at the church where we met (he first held my hand at the youth group lock-in, presh!) and got married 3 1/2 months later. In retrospect, this rushed engagement is not what I recommend to others but it worked for us! Except for weekends, we were apart up until the day we returned from our honeymoon and moved to Des Moines, Iowa which made for a completely ridiculous first year of marriage. But thanks to the support of a great church and the fact we were madly in love, we made it through some hard times. It is actually that time apart and independence that have helped us prepare to weather the long-stretches of separation we now experience due to Mike's job. 

We looked back at some pictures over the weekend and with wedding season approaching, I thought it might be fun to share them on here! I broke our special day down into my 10 favorite things and am attaching pictures accordingly. 

1. The decorations

Hubby and his roommate made this cake plate using a tree in their backyard

We hung the place cards on a clothes line 

The table numbers were glued to tree limbs, another contribution by the Hubs

Mason jars for the dessert table

2. Wearing a baseball cap and insisting we had Busch Light at the reception (in a can)

Our friends Keegan and Katie caught the garter and bouquet

3. All our friends

Hubs, his brothers, and his two best friends

These crazies have a combined total of four kids now

These girls were students at UNC when I was on staff there, love them!

I love this picture of Ashley and I, she is supervising me to monitor that I don't put on too much make-up

Our beloved friends from our home church who watched us grow up

My sweet friends Brittany and Kristen are both expecting baby girls this summer

Betty and I had babies 3 weeks apart and we still talk on the phone everyday!

4. How involved our families were in making this day special

My sister and mother, they alleviated much of the stress that goes into planning a wedding

My precious friend Lauren is getting married this Spring, and Mike's cousin Tim who he was fishing with on our anniversary last week

Uncle Fred married us, he made us laugh and cry and shared Christ with everyone we love

5. The dress I chose

This sucker was under budget and the first dress I tried on

6. Our ceremony

I walked down the aisle to my dear friend Kellie singing my favorite hymn, "Lord of Lord's" 

So happy!

7. Lots of flowers

8. The places

We got married not at the church we were raised in but one close to my parent's house so that Uncle Fred could perform the ceremony

Our cocktail hour and reception were at the Danada House in Wheaton, Illinois

9. The invitations

Bella Carta Studio did our invitations, I love graphic design so this was an important element to me and they did a fantastic job!

We took this 'Save the Date' photo on a whim, stopping at our Uncle Bob's house on the way home from church one Sunday, using a piece of a cardboard box we found on the side of the road to make the sign

10. Our ridiculous 'exit'

It is more of a southern tradition to have an eventful exit when the couple leaves the reception. Most of my friends had sparklers. The venue we were at restricted fire, rice, and bubbles, so we got innovative and came up with waving hanker-chiefs and blowing bazooka's. I didn't put much thought into it and remember walking out thinking, "Why did I do this?! This is so strange!" 

Every detail of the day did not go perfectly, it had its quirks as do I! As I was searching through these pictures I realized that there were a lot none of our friends had seen. Thanks for looking through this post and giving me a chance to share them!

Elaborate Birthday Parties & the Spending Fast

Good morning! It has been hard to write this week as I have been managing a new business called "Taking Care of my Friends' Kids." Since it is Spring Break, several of the day-care providers in town are closed. One gal is expecting a baby and needed to get her feet professionally rubbed on a daily basis so I took care of her one-year-old. My awesome farm-wife-friend had to load out hogs with her husband (this is a real thing, we're in rural Iowa folks!) They know I stay home and love a little chaos, so most of my waking hours this week I had between 5 and 7 toddlers, ages 3 and under. That took care of my baby fix as well as my "wouldn't it be so fun to have a big family" fix.

We had "circle time" where we read books and sang songs together. This meant Lou held the book and screamed "My book, my caterpillar, Louie no more share!" while all the other children quickly crawled away. Pictures of children are often a farse, nothing is as precious as it seems!

I've had several different thoughts swirling around and wrote one silly long post but decided instead to break each thought into its own post. So, hurray! There will be a post every day through the next week.

It is so funny to me that by not spending any money on myself (it has been 80 days!) I find ways to channel that spending love into other nonsense. It is like the gopher game at the arcade where you smack one down and another pops up. For example, Mack's first birthday is coming up and I have had to  hold myself back in every way possible. At one point, my Amazon shopping cart had over $200 worth of chevron paper products, giant number '1' shaped balloons, crepe paper, cake toppers, cookie cutters, and 15 Bambi golden books as party favors (the intended theme was, "Our little deer is turning one!")

Source

Kids' birthday parties are hard for me. You want your child to feel so loved and adored and special on their birthday. So you think of some ideas that fit with your child's personality, start brainstorming, and then turn to Pinterest to make all your creativity a reality. And before you know it, your little dreams of children running around your balloon filled house eating cupcakes has turned into a made from scratch 8 layer cake and a decorated bathroom to "keep the theme consistent" even though most of your guests are still in diapers. Not that I am speaking from personal experience... So over the past two years, I have found that birthday throwing is not my forte.

The Holy Grail of birthday party throwing, the elusive "Rainbow Cake"

Lou's 1st Birthday, where I cooked 3 entree's, a dozen sides, 4 desserts, and made my husband crazy

I LOVE the thought and heart behind themed birthday parties- but alas, I am an idea person and making these things a reality causes intense stress on my life. The planning stage is incredibly fun, the execution is terrible and I take my whole family down with me. For me, throwing a birthday party (granted, my kids are young, young, young!) becomes more about me impressing others than about me blessing my child with a special day. I am just messed up like that.

So birthday parties are now on my list of things I do not do.

Please people, especially us perfectionist ladies, make yourself a list of things you do not do. I keep mine in my phone, just in case I find myself at Home Depot with a cart full of plants and potting soil and a book called Growing Hydragenas God's Way.

Here is my list: (I've included a few things I do like, for confidence building purposes)

I like to cook.

I do not like to clean.

I do not garden.

I do not host dinner parties.

I start furniture projects and sometimes, I complete them.

I do not throw elaborate, themed birthday parties for my husband or children.

I listen to mix cd's in my car.

I do not train animals.

I do not dress my children in ornate, matching outfits for holidays.

I do not scrapbook nor keep any record of my children's lives other than my memory and what is in my i-phone.

Proof of the list:

This is a work in progress. I am months away from turning thirty and am in a season of learning about who I am and where I am heading in life... after spending three decades knowing NEITHER of these things. I have found that it is very important for me to recognize what I love, what makes me thrive as a person and to learn that, I must also acknowledge what makes me want to curl up into a little ball and hide under a blanket. Having a list is a quick reference when I get carried away and try to be good at everything.

100% this concept comes from the wonderful book Bittersweet by Shauna Niequest. Shauna is a truth teller and a gracious one at that, the greatest combination there ever was. Please read this and feel a little more at rest with who you are... and who you are not.

"It’s brutal, making the list of Things I Don’t Do, especially for someone like me, who refuses most of the time to acknowledge that there is, in fact, a limit to her personal ability to get things done. But I’ve discovered that the list sets me free. I have it written in black and white, sitting on my desk, and when I’m tempted to go rogue and bake muffins because all the other moms do, I come back to both lists, and I remind myself about the important things: that time is finite, as is energy. And that one day I’ll stand before God and account for what I did with my life. There is work that is only mine to do: a child that is ours to raise, stories that are mine to tell, friends that are mine to walk with. The grandest seduction of all is the myth that DOING EVERYTHING BETTER gets us where we want to be. It gets us somewhere, certainly, but not anywhere worth being."

Thank you Shauna, and may I add: it is also important when making a list to put a period at the end of each item and give a little head nod when you read it aloud. That makes each thing official and permanent. When I read my list, it makes me relax and sigh and remember, oh yes, I am just Ally and I do not have to do it all.

In learning what I do not do, it is important for me to recognize that I am an extremely excitable person. People get me worked up and talked into just about anything. My husband knows this about me and often takes advantage of it. Like the time he convinced to get a six-week-old coonhound puppy (the kind that 'bay' which is a loud, howling sound. Our neighbor from 5 houses down brought us a bark collar "just in case we needed it").

We hope Gus is doing well since he began his new life on the farm we sent him to

This all was when our daughter was also six-weeks-old... and I DIDN'T EVEN WANT A DOG. I vowed never to be talked into doing things like that again when I was 35 weeks pregnant, carrying a one-year-old on my hip, locked out of my house wearing my bath robe, and chasing that 80 lb "puppy" around our neighborhood, shouting expletives and throwing dog food from my pockets at 7 am. Bless it. It was then that I added "I do not train animals" to my list.

Anyways, it is possible to have a simple, inexpensive birthday party, I've heard, and we will be trying this experiment next weekend. I have not yet given my friends their invitations (also known as a text message with the place and time) so there is a chance no one will even be able to come.

I am not judging people who throw beautiful birthday parties for their children because there are those out there who are gifted in this area, it is on their "can do" list. It's true, I have met them. My friend Abby started planning her son's first birthday party when she was pregnant and had the house decorated for over two weeks before it started. There were water bottles with his name on them, it was amazing. This is one her things, it gives her life, makes her more of who she is. We had such a sweet time celebrating her son turning one. I love and appreciate that about her, and try very hard not to feel bad about myself for being different.

Part of why I wish I loved party-planning is that I want to make the people who come into my home feel loved, but I have yet to do this because usually by the time they arrive I am angry at them being there because I've been fighting with my husband over who has done the most to get the house suitable and the food prepared and suddenly nothing is fun anymore and nobody feels welcome. But I really want to keep trying in this area and hope that one day I can add to my list: "I make people feel welcome in my home" and also the goal of my marriage which is "My husband and I do not fight before company comes."

It is fun to plan parties and distracting from all the boring hum-drum of daily life and is also a reason to vacuum my carpets. But it is not a reason to spend $200 on chevron paper plates.

I adore Mack and want his birthday to be special. He is the best surprise I've ever received. I love a good celebration and what is better than planning a little party for this sweet face?

Katie Evans Photography

I cannot wait to share with you how it turns out.