07-21-12

Trunk or Treat

Blake and Papa

Our little giraffe had a cold and was not a happy camper!

My monkey nephew Jack Ryan

The sweetest ice cream cone ever...my niece Addie Paige!

Katie and Jack Ryan

The birthday party Addie planned...party hats, pinata, cookies...this girl knows how to party!

 Blake's first taste of Halloween candy!

Don't forget to enter my latest giveaway here!

Coupon code GRACE10  good through next Wednesday

at Grace For Grace!!

Getting Away

Hooray for a get-away!

Josh and I are headed to Detroit to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary this weekend...

we'll be cheering for our hometown heroes tonight in

Go Red Wings!

Tomorrow we're going to visit Ikea and I may not ever come home!!

I am so excited to finally get to visit this amazing store...

and Josh is not so excited to see the bill (wink*).  

Blake is headed to Grandma & Papa's house....thanks Mom and Dad!

I'll be back at it next week, with an exciting giveaway for you guys...seriously can't wait to share it with you.

Have a fabulous weekend friends!

Fifty About Me

1. What time did you get up this morning? 9 am

2. How do you like your steak? medium-well

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema: Courageous...loved it!

4. What is your favorite TV show? NCIS

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? right here

6. What did you have for breakfast? a banana

7. What is your favorite food? homemade bread and soups, pizza, bagels...carbs basically

8. Foods you dislike? lentils, eggplant, not a whole lot!

9. Favorite place to eat? Qdoba, Red Robin, and Olive Garden

10. Favorite dressing? ranch

11. What kind of vehicle do you drive? an Oldsmobile Alero

12. What are your favorite clothes? boots and sweaters

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? Ireland

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? usually half full

15. Where would you want to retire? i don't know if i want to!

16. Favorite time of day? i'm a night owl, but love spending days with Blake and evenings with Josh

17. Where were you born? Grand Rapids

18. What is your favorite sport to watch? hockey or football

19. What is your favorite fragrance? The way Blake smells after his bath. Right now I'm wearing Avon's Rare Diamonds & really like it!

20. What is your favorite face cream? i'm not a loyalist...whatever keeps my skin from feeling dry and itchy 

21. Favorite baby/kids products? slings and carriers

22. People watcher? yes

23. Are you a morning or night person? night

24. Do you have any pets? not yet

25. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? Josh and I are headed away for our anniversary weekend in 1 week!!

26. What did you want to be when you were little? a ballerina, an astronaut, and a writer

27. What is your favorite memory? too many to list

28. Are you a cat or dog person? dog person

29. Are you married? yes...um, duh!

30. Always wear your seat belt? of course

31. Been in a car accident? yes, but not a bad one

32. Any pet peeves? slow traffic

33. Favorite pizza toppings? cheese and pepperoni...sometimes black olives

34. Favorite flower? daisies and hydrangeas

35. Favorite ice cream? coffee lover's from Coldstone Creamery

36. Favorite fast food restaurant? Sonic and Mc Donald's

37. How many times did you fail your driver's test? none

38. From whom did you get your last email? Rue La La

39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Hobby Lobby 

40. Do anything spontaneous lately? bought a Keurig tonight (but Josh had gift cards)

41. Like your job? love it

42. Broccoli? yes, please

43. What was your favorite vacation? honeymoon to Chicago

44. Last person you went out to dinner with? Josh and Blake

45. What are you listening to right now? the tv in the other room

46. What is your favorite color? blue usually...but i'm loving mustard yellow lately

47. How many tattoos do you have? zilch

48. coffee drinker? yes definitely!

49. how tall are you? 5 feet 6 inches

50. hobbies? making crafty things, playing the piano, couponing

Where I Was

Have I ever mentioned my very favorite movie of all time is You've Got Mail?

If not, now you know!

I love the part where Joe Fox is trying to explain away in an email to Kathleen Kelly

  where he was

the night they were supposed to meet at the coffee shop. 

"I was in Vancouver...and the power went out....and the phones were out too....strangely enough?!"

Okay, well that's how I feel about last week. 

Like I have to come with some ridiculous excuse for not blogging since last Tuesday...

I don't have a wow story to share....just the truth. 

Blake's been sick, I've been thinking, and we've been really busy. 

Can you relate??

Sometimes in life we just have to give ourselves the permission to sit on the couch with our coughing little boy  and not feel guilty for napping when he does. 

It happens. We need sleep too!

Sometimes in life we have to give ourselves time. 

Time to figure out what it is that God's working on inside of us, 

what our hearts are feeling and our minds are thinking. 

Time to enjoy living life instead of viewing it from behind a camera lens.

Sometimes we just need a break. 

So that's where I've been...what I've been doing. 

I'll share more this week. 

But just so you know, I'm back...and I'm thankful for all of you who check in every day

to see what's up in our little world.

Your visits make me happy and your comments encourage my heart!

My Day So Far

Finding time to write a blog post is sometimes harder than you'd think. At least it is when you're trying really hard to keep your priorities and responsibilities in the right order! And then when you find the time...well, it helps to have subject matter, wink*

I've read all the Getting Past Writer's Block and Blogging Tips 101 posts from other successful bloggers. Sometimes it just comes down to figuring out what's on your heart and how to put those feelings, emotions, and thoughts into something that makes sense to the people reading it!

I'm not quite there yet...so instead of forcing it, I'll just save it for a day when I'm ready and share what today looks like from where I'm sitting.

Midnight-ish, last night: Josh and I wake up on the couch and love-seat, respectively, and do the zombie-like walk to our room. We sleep. 

6 am-ish: I vaguely remember saying good-bye to Josh as he heads out for work. 

7:15: I wake up to Blake screaming, stumble into his room to pick him up, then lay back down in my bed with him beside me, for just a few more minutes. 

9:00am: Well ok, that was more than just a few more minutes. I'm not a morning person, what can I say??

10:30am: We head out for a visit to the music store. This goes well...the sales lady doesn't have to dodge a pacifier flying past her left temple because my son didn't throw a temper tantrum this time. 

We've made progress!

11:06am: Blake wants to play outside. I am pelted by 6 falling acorns while sitting on the stairs listening to Blake emphatically tell me he wants the stroller out of the trunk of the car. 

I fain ignorance. 

This leads to a melt-down....lunch, anyone?

11:32am: Cheese, crackers, apple, baby carrots, and milk. Blake signs All Done...and yawns. 

Diaper changed and we rock....

11: 57am: and rock, and rock, and rock...I lay Blake down in his crib. 

This is the part where I do the crazy-lady mad dash through my house, picking up everything from clothing, shoes, toys, and dishes to the Sunday newspaper. 

I start working on homemade soup for dinner. 

I eat a grape. 

12:34pm: Josh calls on his lunch break. I miss him. He misses me. It's Monday.

12:46pm: Blake is crying. I stop the microwave because I've learned that when you're making a Bechamel sauce and you get interrupted, the next thing in the Series of Unfortunate Events is a sticky, paste-like explosion to clean up. 

12:48pm: I lay down on my bed with Blake. Thankfully, this works (on a daily basis) to get a longer nap out of him. I do the shimmy- slide-and sneak maneuver to unwrap his arms from my neck, slide off the bed, and sneak out the door. Back to my soup. 

1:04pm: I eat another grape. Then I stir my sauce into my soup and pour it into the crockpot. Someday I will serve homemade soup with homemade bread. Today I am not that ambitious. 

 1:15pm: Laundry is started and I sit down to write. Um yeah, I got nothin'. This is my reality. 

It's not perfect, it's not glamorous, but it's mine.

And I wouldn't trade it with anybody.  

2:03pm: Post finished. Stomach growls...

Anybody want a grape??



Linking up with MckMama over at...

Finding Balance

Thinking can be so exhausting at times...

and so can writing.

I always thought writing out my thoughts was a sort of release. Just getting those words tumbling around in my mind, out on to paper somehow seemed to make everything clearer. 

Like a weight had been lifted. 

I haven't found that with blogging...maybe because it is so un-private. 

And as I said here, I'm a private person. 

At some point though, I guess we all have to own up to who we are. So I'm trying...

I am struggling to find balance in my life lately. In so many areas! 

Some of those areas are small, maybe even insignificant...like not spending too much time on my appearance, but not wearing my pajama pants all day, wink*

Some areas are more significant. 

Like eating. 

I struggle mentally and physically sometimes on a daily basis with keeping balance in this area. I have struggled since high school...sometimes choosing to go without eating for days, sometimes choosing to not keep what I've eaten in my body, sometimes eating more french fries in a week than a human being should. 

It is a battle I have fought and lost in the past. It is a battle I still fight today. 

The more stress I feel, the harder I find the balancing act to be. 

I try really hard to just eat healthy foods, appropriate portions, and do at least some kind of exercise. 

But then there are the times that I look in the mirror and see the stretch marks, the lumps and bumps...

and I start to see-saw. 

I start to think about how thin other women are. I start to think about every calorie, every carb. 

I choose to see my outward appearance as greater than my inward. 

And I search through my memory for some small nugget of truth that says,

God looks on the heart.

He wants me to be healthy. He wants me to see who I am in Him. 

And I want that too!

But I forget it sometimes...

I want to be healthy. I want to have a settled heart and balanced mind, so I can tell others that they aren't defined by the clothes they wear or the size they are. 

That they are cherished, and precious, and beautiful to their Creator. 

But I have to believe it myself...

So I'm fighting the thoughts. I'm fighting the feelings. I'm fighting for truth. 

Maybe it seems silly...struggling over whether or not to stop for a milkshake, 

whether to do 30 or 45 minutes on the elliptical, whether or not to skip a meal.

But I struggle. 

And I'm tired. 

And I'm trying to hold tightly to hope. 

Hope in the promise that someday I won't struggle anymore. Hope that tomorrow is a new day and I won't feel as tired of the battle. Hope that one day I'll be new and whole and perfect. 

Hope that God can use me to encourage someone else...

One and A Half

Two Days Old

One Week Old

Three Weeks Old

Six Months Old

Seven Months Old

Nine Months Old

 One Year Old

Fifteen Months Old

Dear Blake~

Today we had your 18 month checkup! You have grown....and finally have made it back onto 

the charts. 

The doctor calls you delightful. He says you're an above-average talker...

but mommy already knew that. 

You are growing up so fast and I wish that I could bottle up every minute I have with you, so I could store it away and relive every moment that God gives me as your mommy. 

I am proud of you. I am thankful God gave you to me. 

I am excited to see what God will grow you up to be.

I know you will be great, no matter what you do, because you are already

such a great little person to me. 

You stole my heart 18 months ago...

and have never let me have it back! 

I love your sweet hugs. I love your tickle, tickles. I love you Blake. 

Now please stop growing so fast....

Long Days, Fast Years

Today I am tired. Blake's been working on pushing through his last two teeth all week, and I'm at the point of not remembering things now...

 You know- the point where you wake up in the morning and go "Oh, there's a child in my bed", and you have no idea how he got there?  But I'm pretty sure at some point in the night I stumbled into his room, picked him up, and laid him down next to me...comatose. My mom told me before Blake was born,

The days will seem to go so slow at times,

 but the years will fly right by.

I'm realizing the truth in her words more and more these days! God gave me a busy, busy boy. He is effervescent, determined, curious, stubborn, and plain old ALL BOY! There are days that I wonder why I even attempt to clean or have an organized home...Blake is one of those kids that is 100% rearing to go from the minute he gets up in the morning until he lays his down at night. He plays hard and crashes hard!

Sometimes that makes our days seem really, really loooooong. On the flip side, it makes the weeks and months go sailing by- faster than I would like. 

So on days like today, when my body and mind are tired, I'm trying to learn that it's ok to wait an extra day or so for the toilet to get cleaned or the kitchen floor to get mopped. Because

  I'm not Wonder Woman. 

And because I have a little boy who's growing up right before my eyes....faster than I thought possible. Quicker than I can grab hold of. 

And I don't want to miss any of it.

Linking up today with sweet, sweet Casey....

Attitude

I knew from the moment Blake sneezed his mouthful of soggy Fruit Loops all over my clean shirt and flat-ironed hair that it was going to be one of those days. My little guy's favorite way of expressing his extreme dislike of any given situation is to throw his Bo-Bo (bink, paci...) as hard and defiantly as he can. By the time we'd finished running a quick errand this morning, he'd chucked it probably 10 times in the car- and I was done. I was so sick of picking that dumb thing up, and I looked at his sweet face and yelled,

"Either knock it off or I'm throwing Bo-Bo in the garbage!!"

 His little face was so shocked...I felt like the worst mommy ever and I started bawling right there in the driver's seat. Which just shocked him even more! I sat there thinking Ok, who's the adult here? You're yelling at an 18 month old over a pacifier for pete's sake....get it together woman!!

Oh how I wish I could just walk peacefully and calmly through life!! To meet every situation with a soft answer, a humble attitude, a joyful heart. But it's not a field of perky daisies every day, now is it?? I long for my life to reflect grace, and yet so often I feel I'm reflecting something far from it.

Before Josh and I got married, we had marriage counseling with our Pastor. He had us take personality assessments-which was actually really helpful and really shocking to me! While my personality in some areas is overly submissive and compliant, my attitude (on a scale of 1-10) was at a 9!!

I prefer the term spunky or spitfire. 

But whatever I call it, at the end of the day, if my heart's full of contention, anger, frustration, and pride...my God calls it sin.

And so many areas of my life are affected by that attitude! By my perspective. So many days I think about what I have to do instead of what I get to do. I have to do laundry, I have to teach piano, I have to scrub the bathroom....

As a stay at home mama there's so much I get to do!! I get to feed Blake breakfast, play, and read books. I get to have a good meal ready for Josh when he comes home after a long day. I get to go to the park, the store, just out for a drive! So many, many things in life are blessings in disguise. But I only see them if I'm willing to be still, to soak it up, to lay down my attitude and take up the joy of serving others. 

The funny thing about little boys is that one minute they are fighting against everything- the car seat straps, the mommy's hand, the word "No"; and the next minute they are planting a big, wet kiss on your cheek. It is humbling. To be forgiven so quickly and loved so unconditionally.

Tomorrow is a fresh start, a clean slate...I'm thankful that Blake is too little to remember today's failures. 

And when I fail, I can seek His grace.
And I'm thankful that when I succeed, I can give God thanks.

And when the day is done,

I can place my head on my pillow and rest.

source: pinterest

Polderman Family A to Z

A: age:: Mo and Josh- 28; Blake- 17 months

B: bed size:: Queen for the mama and daddy. Crib for the little.

C: chore you hate:: doing dishes, mowing the lawn, picking up

D: dogs:: someday (maybe)

E: everyday essential:: makeup. Android. Milk.

F: favorite color:: blue

G: girl or boy:: girl, boy, boy

H: height:: 5' 6". 5' 10". 2' 10"

I: instruments you play:: piano. guitar. kitchen bowls and toy piano

J: job title:: mama, piano teacher, blog writer. daddy, CAD Drafter. toddler, kiss giver, hammer pounder, tantrum thrower

K: kind of snack:: chocolate. chips & cheese. goldfish crackers.

L: live:: near Grand Rapids, MI!

M: must watch:: NCIS and Duggers. NCIS and American Pickers. Bobby( Barney) , Thomas the Tank Engine, and Veggie Tales

N: nicknames:: Mo, Josh, Blakers

O: olives:: black only, by the can

P: pet peeve:: slow drivers, politicians, the word "no-no"

Q: quote::

" The good news about Jesus is that He comes to all, including the plain and ordinary. He comes to anyone with a heart humble enough to accept Him. Whoever you are, whatever you do, you can have Jesus in your life. Don't think you need extraordinary qualifications- He accepts you as you are." ~ Max Lucado

R: righty or lefty:: all righty (as far as we can tell!)

S: siblings:: 4 sisters, 3 brothers. 1 sister, 1 brother. 0 sisters, 0 brothers- for now ;)

T: time you wake up:: between 8 & 9. 5:30ish. around 6 and around 8-9.

U: university attended:: GRCC, PCC. Cornerstone University, GRCC. school of cuteness.

V: vegetables you dislike:: none!. most!. most besides sweet potato and carrots.

W: winter:: like it til my birthday!. dislike it since the snowblower died. never heard of it!

X: x-factor (an unknown, but vital quality):: problem solver. remembers everyone he meets. can melt hearts.

Y: yummy food:: pasta and bread. Monte Cristo. blueberries, cheese, and goldfishies

Z: zoo animal fave:: tigers, lions, monkeys

Now it's your turn...pick a letter (or 2!) and leave a comment with your answer! I love getting to know you!! Enjoy this sweet day **