To begin this journey...

I wanted to start this blog because sometimes I just get so darned frustrated in so many ways with the roles that I have in my life. I am first and foremost a Christian and that in and of itself is challenging yet so very rewarding. Following that I am a wife, which so far hasn't been that challenging but more fulfilling than anyone ever told me that it could be. I love my husband with all of my heart and couldn't ask for a better life partner. Neither of us is perfect, by any means, and we face the same issues that most married women and men do, but we are a team and that is enough to get us through it all together, still with love and devotion to each other. Then following that, I am a mommy. THIS one, folks, has been a roller coaster of emotions that I welcome each and every day. My children are amazing and watching them grow is just like watching God work His will each and every moment of each and every day. I always think about their existence as proof of HIS existence. I know that not everyone agrees that babies are proof enough of a God but to me they are definitely one of His best and most loving ways to show us his love, dedication, and grace. This also gives us a way, as parents, to grow in our understanding and love for Him. It seems like a theme for this blog is going to be love lol.

None of these roles is easy. Being a Christian means being stereotyped, persecuted, and disliked but I will take that all gladly if it means that God knows that I have faith in Him and that when it is my time to leave this Earth I will be called HOME. Like I said, being a wife hasn't been terribly challenging but I am not naiive and know that it will come of it's own set of obstacle courses. And parenting, whew, it's work-but it's definitely a labor of love that I would never trade for anything. My children are beautiful and amazing and I love holding them, playing with them, looking into their eyes and seeing their trust in me as their mommy...I could go on all day about them, but I think that to describe all of these roles I should start with the first one and work my way down. Then my blogs will make a little bit of sense from now on-I know its a ton to put in one blog but bear with me.

I was raised in a broken, but good, home. My parents divorced when I was three and I lived with my mom. I also visited my dad at least once a month so neither of my parents was absent. Both of my parents believe in God (mom being Baptist, dad being Methodist), although they're not extremely faithful about church and aren't as outspoken about their faith as I have become over the years. I do know that I've seen my dad pray and my mom mentions praying, so that was enough of a springboard for God to work in my heart to bring me to Him. My childhood wasn't easy, don't get me wrong. I am working through so many issues that I have with my mom because of things that myself and my three sisters went through, but God has gotten me through it all, time and time again. Anyhow, back to the subject at hand, when I was 8 I was sitting in church during the invitation and God stirred my heart. I went up to the front and told Pastor Chris (an amazing man who helped guide me in my early days as a Christian) that I wanted to accept Jesus Christ into my heart as my savior and become one of His children. I was baptized not long after (haha I was sprinkled as a baby in a Methodist church and dunked when I was 8 in a Baptist church). God kept me close to Him throughout the years, even without a stable church family (my mom moved us around a ton and like I said, dad didn't really go to church often) and when I was in high school I was invited to join a youth choir named Crossflame. Talk about God working in my life!! That choir brought the Holy Spirit back into my life full force just like when I was 8 and accepted Christ. I've always loved singing and worshiping through song was just such a great experience for me.

I was active in church from then on but then life happened and I let myself fall away a little. I still believed all that I believed before but I wasn't living like I should. I let things that happened in my life affect my heart way more than I'd like to admit and wasn't praising and worshiping as I should. I wasn't spending time with God each and every day...I wasn't even spending time with him each month. He worked on me though, putting strong believers in my life whenever I fell away and He kept me close.

Insert Drew, my amazing and wonderful husband that God created just for me...I truly believe that! I sometimes think that when God created me he took a little piece of Drew and gave it to me so that I would know when he came along that he was the one. I also think that he did the same for Drew because when we finally let ourselves become more than just friends (4 and 1/2 years after meeting!) we just knew it was meant to be. God has used Drew to bring me closer to Him and has used me to bring Drew closer to Him as well-what a great idea, God, that's why you are the MAN! Ever since we got married we have both just been so much more faithful than before. We don't miss church unless we are SICK, we read the Bible and do Bible studies every night and we are raising our children to know just how much God loves them. I'm not trying to toot our horns, I'm tooting God's. He knows just what to do to keep his children close. Yes, we've both experienced growing pains but guess what came out of those growing pains...a better relationship with HIM! I know that this is the watered down version of my relationship with Christ, but I'm sure I will delve much deeper into it as time with this blog continues.

Onto my role as a wife, which, as you have now read, has quite a bit to do with my relationship with God. We met when I was in college, the summer of 2003, before TOO much of my backsliding occurred. We were in a philosophy class where the professor told us on the first day that all opinions are welcome and no one is wrong, yet he shot down absolutely anyone in the class that believed in God. I fell asleep in the class one day (admittedly I could have had an A in the class but was so uncaring about it that I didn't work hard and made a B) and for some reason, the cute guy that I had been checking out that semester that always sat across from me (with the big ears, oh yes, they were sooo cute lol) stopped me outside of class. "I saw you sleeping in class," he says. WHAT??? WHO is this guy calling me out like this??? We talked a little bit and it turned out he felt the way I did-that the professor was a jerk and that we both would stand firm in our faith no matter what he said. Hmm, this could be a great ally for the class! We started to study online together, posting on each others' bulletin comments as we were required for the class, and discussing the tedious readings together, all the while flirting *gasp!*. He came to see me at work (Planet Smoothie guys, oh yes, I was a smoothie girl) and then after finishing my final exam I nodded goodbye to him and didn't expect to hear much from him again...only during the fall semester he invited me to his apartment to hang out.

Okay, I didn't usually make it a habit to hang out with guys that I don't know THAT well at their place, but I took a leap of faith and decided, what the heck? He picked me up and we decided to just watch a movie in the living room because he was a gentleman and knew that I probably wouldn't be comfortable hanging out in his bedroom. We get there, and his brother and roommate won't leave the room so it's just us two with them, feeling awkward, watching ANIMAL HOUSE (what a man movie, by the way). About a third of the way through the movie I started to feel not so hot. My throat got scratchy, my head started to hurt, and then I started to burn up. I got this freak fever and was feeling weirded out enough already by his brother and roommate so when the movie was over I was ready to go home. Drew gave me a Tylenol, a hug, and took me home. From then on I felt so embarrassed that I stood him up every time he tried to hang out with me, or take me on a date, again.

Insert the death of my Grandma Wood, my dad's mom. I was very close to her and it was quite devastating. I knew that she was older and she had been sick here and there but I still didn't expect to lose her. Once she passed away I decided to move closer to home while and I wanted to change my major to elementary education, which at the time, NC State didn't offer to me, so I transferred to Appalachian State and didn't (often) look back.

Drew and I stayed friends online (remember AIM, anyone?) and would have long chats about family, faith, love, etc but we were in the friend zone-well, he might tell it differently but he was definitely in MY friend zone! I dated a guy for three years and it was awful for so many reasons in so many ways. Our relationship was doomed from the beginning and was probably the low of my life (I just wasn't myself because I was in this hole of a depression trying to save something that just wasn't right) and so every time Drew came to Boone to visit (where I now went to school) I would blow him off. We did still keep in touch though and when I got engaged to my ex (BIG MISTAKE, last ditch effort to fix what was never meant to be to start with) I for some reason hesitated to tell one person: Drew. My heart just wasn't in it and Drew always held me accountable for my bad relationships, especially this one. Finally, four months after it happened, I told him and he wasn't too happy but he was kind about it. THEN two months after that when the engagement ended and I was in need of a good friend, I told Drew that we broke up. He tells everyone now that when I told him, he did a fist pump-old school, bring your elbow to your side with your fist clenched fist pump. I, of course, didn't know that. We started talking online every day after that and so of course when I needed a date to a wedding he offered to come. Now he was living in Savannah, me in NC while I finished up school with my student teaching, and so I didn't want him to drive that far. I told him no but then he convinced me. Of course the time came to come here and he calls the night before to tell me he can't make it!!! In his defense I had a ton going on that weekend and wouldn't be able to spend a ton of time with him, plus I was nervous about seeing him after it had been so long since we'd been together in person, BUT STILL! So instead he came to see me the next weekend.

Now I'm never one for being nervous around guys...I'm pretty confident but for some reason Drew made me nervous. He gave me a big hug when he got into town and we set off for dinner. THEN I forgot my purse at the house and we had to head back. He didn't understand why but I'm so independent and still under the impression that he was just a friend and wanted to pay for my own dinner. Of course he paid for it and we had a wonderful time and we both realized that we weren't meant to be "just friends." The next weekend he came to see me again and we went to Raleigh for an NC State game. I met one of his brothers and a ton of his friends, he met my best friends, and we had a blast. At the end of the weekend when he had to head back to Savannah it was just like someone had squeezed my heart-I didn't want him to go. It physically hurt to be away from him. That was when I knew I had fallen in love with my "friend," and the next weekend we both made it official by telling each other. I know it doesn't seem possible but it is, and remember, God's hand was in this all and with Him, ANYTHING is possible! After a month of dating we decided to get married. At first we weren't going to tell anyone (no one really agreed with us being together in the first place, not knowing how well we knew each other) but we decided that wouldn't be fair to our parents and so we had a beautiful wedding on Tybee Island on December 8, 2007, just four months(ish) after we started dating. It was an incredible day that I will never forget and I will never regret. I married the one that God created for me and together we have become so much closer to Him. There are so many signs that I could write about that pointed us that way but I won't make you all gag. Just know this: I welcome all of life's trials as long as I have Drew by my side.

Onto the mother role that I now have. Throughout the years of friendship that Drew and I had we talked about many things, including what we both wanted out of marriage and life (not knowing that we were talking about our life together). We both wanted kids pretty much right away, we both wanted the mama to stay at home with the kids because in our opinions, that's the way it should be, and we both wanted the daddy to "bring home the bacon" and be the leader of the household. Yes, I have a bachelor's and master's degree and have worked since I was 16, yes, I believe in the power of a woman and that women are incredible, but YES I AM OLD FASHIONED THAT WAY. When we got married it was natural that we wanted children right away but we didn't discuss that with our families...their heads were still spinning from our marriage! We were on a trip at the end of December when I didn't feel so hot...just super tired and not hungry often. On the day before New Years Eve I took a pregnancy test and behold, it was positive! It was a little scary because we were so newly pregnant that the line was almost invisible because it was so faint, but it was there, and we were excited! We only told three close friends at first, for fear that something would happen and we would lose the baby, but 6 weeks later we had an ultrasound and there was that little bean with a strong and healthy heartbeat, ready for us to be it's parents. It was an amazing day that I still smile at when I think of it. That bean turned out to be a 6 lb, 8 oz, 20.5 inch long baby boy born on August 30th, 2008, a week shy of his due date. His name is Sebastian Cobb and he is beautiful. Four months after he was born I had a hot flash and couldn't stop looking at maternity clothes. I took a test and BAM, I was seeing that almost invisible line of early pregnancy again! There were a couple of complications in the beginning that most people don't know about and caused us to have a few more ultrasounds than before, but there it was, our little bug with a healthy, strong heartbeat. That bug turned out to be a 7 lb, 8 oz, 21.5 inch long baby girl born on September 24th, almost two weeks shy of her due day. Her name is Leighlah Diane, and she is also beautiful. They are challenging and whew, they keep me busy, but I wouldn't have it any other way...I'd even keep the fact that they are a week shy of 13 months apart too. Call me crazy but I love my kids! They are blessings from God, and hopefully not the only two (but hey, we are so blessed that if He only gives us two then we are SO grateful!).

Anyhow, I know that's a long blog, but it sets up the premise for the ones to come and they shouldn't be nearly as long! Husband and I are going on a date tonight, the first one in an entire year, and I CANNOT WAIT! :-p