Families, marriage, respect...

I'm reading an incredible book, which, by the way, is not on my book list for this spring..oops! The book is My Heart's At Home by Jill Savage. I'm only a little way into the book and I have to say it is so empowering.

Jill says that the book is geared toward helping women become 'intentional moms'. The life lessons she provides are real, honest, down to earth and can be translated into our daily lives easily. She offers practical advice about making our homes a safe haven in today's world and by doing so, we are making over ourselves into those 'intentional moms' she speaks about!

Last night I was able to put one of her lessons into practice and much to my amazement, it worked incredibly well! Jill emphasizes the fact that homes need to be places where we feel respect, but it's usually the one place where we let our guards down enough that respect slowly oozes away from us. That has definitely been true in our house.

At bedtime I went in to tell Josh that we had forgotten Pritsha's (our cat) birthday. He glared at me in fustration and muttered some ill-mannered phrase. It hurt, because while it wasn't important to him, it was important to me and he could have chosen a better way to respond to me. Instead of lashing out in anger as I normally would have which would have resulted in a huge argument and dissolved into us acting like children, I simply said 'Josh, I really feel disrespected when you act like that towards me.' He was quiet for a moment and said 'I'm sorry.' He didn't ask for my forgiveness like Jill suggests, but this was a huge step forward for us--I didn't react in anger, and he apologized! Amazing! I can tell it made such a huge difference to me! I went to bed very happy instead of seething and carrying it over to poison the next day.

Then something else happened! I asked him if we needed to do something (turn on the heater for our daughter--I'm always cold..he's a much better judge of temp!) and he said 'No. I don't think so.' Then he said, 'Good idea, though!' WE WERE BEING POLITE! Normally, being polite is the furthest thing from the conversations that occur in our home! I was so ecstatic!

It just takes a simple step forward and you can make such a huge difference in your home life. I'm eagerly looking forward to more of Jill's insights into building a firm foundation for our family!

Happy 5th Anniversary to us! (Josh and Leah)

It's our fifth anniversary!

Josh and I "met" in August of 2000. Actually, we became online chat friends! Yes, that's right, we met online. We were both in a 20s something chat room and both of us and another guy were quickly cracking everyone up. Gradually the three of us moved into our own room to chat and Josh and I started meeting online, calling each other and emailing. Soon after, we were sending cards and letters and pictures. We were JUST FRIENDS however, since we had never even met, and in August 2001, Josh decided to fly out to NC for his fall break to hang out.

I was dating another guy at the time, but that quickly ended as I fell in love with Josh! In March 2002, we became engaged and in March 2003 we were married! 5 years, 1 baby, 2 cats, a couple of moves and a few jobs later....here we are!

Here are a few photos of us through the years:


Our engagement photo!


Us dancing at our wedding!


Us with the furbabies!


Reagan's first fall fest with mommy and daddy!


This past Christmas with Reagan!