Heart Stops

Beating, beating beating, if your heart stopped beating... 

My beating heart.  It’s something that always seems to be on my mind lately.  I feel my heart beating in my chest; aware of when it speeds up and when it slows down.  I notice how those muscles tighten when I feel worry or stress.  I feel the lightness that laughter brings.  It’s an awareness that is new to me.  You see, my dad had a heart attack last year at the young age of 51.  We almost lost him.  I stood in the hallway of the ER while doctors shocked my dad’s heart back to life 3 different times.  

This wasn’t my family’s first bout with heart problems.  A little over 8 years ago, my mom received a pace maker.  It corrected a problem that she had lived with for years.  But at 42, a pace maker is the last thing you want to hear your doctor recommend.  Heart disease, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol - they all run rampant in my family.  There are times that I feel that my heart is quite literally a ticking time bomb.

After my dad’s double bypass I felt an urgency to start taking better care of my heart.  It became a huge priority to me to lose weight, to start eating healthier, to exercise more.  And I started reading a book on heart health.  The problem with reading the book is that every time I opened the pages I felt a rise in my blood pressure.  As I read about the importance of reducing stress in my life, I would start to stress about how I would make that happen.  Instead of focusing on the good I could do for my heart I would let the overwhelming flood of what ifs enter my head …

“What happens if I do everything right, but it doesn’t matter because my genetics predispose me to having a heart attack? What if I don’t catch the early warning signs? Will this be the way that I die?  Will my heart stop beating and that will be the end of it?  What if I can’t get to the hospital fast enough?  What if my children are there to see it?  What if I die but my kids still need their mommy? What if I’m not ready to die??”

If your heart stopped beating

The end of all you know

Has the life you just stopped living

Left anything to show?

Have you wasted so much time!?

Do you know what it’d be like

If your heart stops beating?

So what if my heart does stop beating?  What then? It shouldn’t matter, right?  I mean I would hope that I would be missed.  And I want the best for my husband and children.  But I know that they would be loved and cared for even I wasn’t here to do it.  So the real question is - Am I ready?

Tell me what you’d do if

You knew this for sure

That every breath that you breath

Will be accounted for

Would it make a difference

If you knew that all your life

Is being seen by the maker of all?

Am I living like this?  Like my every breath will be accounted for?  I don’t want to be scared to die.  I want to live my life for Christ and know that when my time comes I’m ready to face Him.

If the heart that pulsed within you

Always lived like time was short

Would the world that is all around you

Come to see your Lord?

I want to learn to live like my time is short.  I want people to see Jesus in me.  I want to not be scared of dying.  It’s going to happen eventually, but I want to rest in the fact that God already knows when and how.  He has a perfect plan for my life.  I need to trust him while my heart is beating and when it stops.

Beating, beating beating, if your heart stopped beating

“Heart Stops” by David Dunn
**press play at the top to hear the song

Garrett turns One

This little guy turns one tomorrow!  I cannot believe how fast this year has gone.  It seems like forever ago that I was pregnant with him but at the same time I feel like he has grown up way too fast.  He is such a cutie pie ... walking, and trying to talk, doing his sign language, and loving everything that his older brothers do!

 We celebrated his birthday on Saturday with a construction party!  It was a lot of fun!

The cakes - one bulldozer and one dump truck!

Poor Cooper wasn't feeling very well during the party.  But Hudson and Cooper both still enjoyed helping Garrett open his presents and blow out his candle!

It didn't take long for Garrett to dive right into his cupcake.  He devoured it and then started clapping his hands, signing for More!

He didn't even seem to notice everyone watching him :)

Then it was straight to the bath!

Afterward Garrett supervised Daddy while he was assembling his new toy!

Hudson turns 5

Hudson turned 5 in February!  I just can't believe how grown up he is lately.  My favorite thing that he has been saying lately is, "A long time ago, when I was 4 ..."  So cute!  

Here he is on his birthday morning having a doughnut.  His big day was on a Sunday this year so we went to church then let him pick where we went to eat ... he chose Rosas! :)

Then it was back home for some lego building.  He loved reading the instructions to Daddy.  

"Level 20 - find a yellow piece"

The next weekend we had a birthday party with one of Hudson's best friends, Joe.  They were born 10 days apart and have been friends ever since! :)  They had so much fun at their joint Lego party!

Lindsy made these super cute cupcakes!

The Birthday Boys

The Party Planners

Happy Birthday Boys!

Rub a Dub Dub ...

Three Men in a Tub!

Garrett is Walking!

My little guy is on the move - two weeks before his first birthday!  This is about the same time frame that my other two started walking, but Garrett has taken a different approach.  Instead of starting by a couch and venturing out, he stood up in the middle of the room and took 3 or 4 steps on his first try!  

For a couple of weeks he has been practicing getting to his feet unassisted.  He's gotten really good at it!  He can be in the middle of a room, stand up, squat down to pick up a toy and stand back up without falling!  The other day I showed him this toy train to push around and he took off!  I knew it wouldn't be long before he tried walking on his own.

These were his first few steps.  Now it's so fun to walk into a room and see him practicing!  

Master Bathroom: Check!

The bathroom is finished! Well, mostly.  We can't use the shower yet because we're waiting on one more piece, but we've moved back in and man are we enjoying it!  It's so nice to see it all come together. 

the bathtub when you first walk in

Our DOUBLE vanity!
The water bottles sitting out were Jeff's idea - Welcome to Hotel Beard :)

The HUGE shower that we'll use one of these days and the separate toilet room.  So wonderful!

When we sealed up the wall where the old closets were this space suddenly felt huge and empty.  So here's the tree I painted to fill the space!

It's so great to have another project checked off our list.  We actually only have one more room to do - the boys bathroom.  Unfortunately, the thought of another project right now makes us want to gag.  We'll get to it one of these days ...

Aloha!

Ahhhh .... Hawaii

Jeff and I spent 10 glorious days in paradise.  It was A-Mazing!  Everything we did was fun, everything we saw was beautiful!  It was an incredible vacation!  We had a couple of fun excuses to go on the trip... mostly it was for the fun of it, but we were also celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary, and we were celebrating the fact that we survived the baby years - no more middle of the night feedings - woohoo! 

I also just like this guy a lot and love any chance I can get to hang out with him! :)

I still can't quite believe we pulled it off.  Being gone for 10 days from a full time job (Jeff) and away from 3 very young children (me) is no small feat.  I need to say a huge MAHALO to my parents for keeping all three of our boys for such an extended stay and for having so much fun with them that they didn't even miss us!  It definitely helped reduce some of my mommy guilt knowing they were having such a good time!  We tried to call them every day.  It was always so fun to hear their sweet little voices.  Cooper would usually cut us off after a few minutes by saying, "That's enough words."  He was only into a phone conversation for so long. :)

We went with Tim and Beth (Jeff's brother and sister-in-law) on a 7 day cruise, island hopping Hawaii.  It was a great way to see a little bit of all of Hawaii!  We started in Oahu where we visited Pearl Harbor and then boarded our ship Pride of America.

The Memorial at Pearl Harbor

Pride of America

Our first stop was Maui where we spent two days going to a beach, a luau and whale watching.

It was so fun riding around the island in our convertible!  The drive was gorgeous.  Every island had so many different regions. There were ocean views the whole way but it was like we drove through several different states in one hour.  Grassy plains, rugged mountains, rainforest - but always next to a ridiculously clear blue ocean.  So pretty!

Whale watching was spectacular! I have a good zoom on my camera but not that good.  These whales came right up next to our boat.  And there were so many around the area.  You just had to watch the horizon for a short time before you were bound to see a blow spout, a tail, even a full breach!

The next island was The Big Island where we stopped in Hilo and Kona.  We visited Volcano National Park, toured a macadamia nut factory, shopped an orchid nursery and went snorkeling.

Steam Vents at Volcano National Park

Lava Tube - a huge tunnel created after one of the eruptions

Beth & Me

Our Tour Guides :)

Shopping around the Kona Harbor

A fancy dinner one night aboard our ship

The last stop was by far my favorite.  Kauai was gorgeous!  We hiked, found a Secret Beach, saw a waterfall and drove around Waimea Canyon (the grand canyon of the Pacific).  If we ever get to go back this is where I want to spend all my time!  A day and a half was not nearly long enough.

This was my view the last day. Sitting on the pool deck with a good book, a crazy pineapple drink and the coastline of Kauai.  What a way to end!

Dinner that night included a beautiful sunset over the Cliffs of Napali.  Incredible!

Then the next morning it was back to Oahu and sadly we had to disembark. All of us had red eye flights back to the mainland so we spent the day driving around the whole island.  We walked around the Dole pineapple farm and watched some surfers take on the Bonzai Pipeline.  Our waiter later told us how terrible the waves were that day.  They looked huge to us!

It's always a little disappointing to leave such a beautiful place then come back home to dusty ole Midland. I had a moment of "We live here?!" when we first landed.  But wow I was excited to see my three little guys!  It was an incredible trip but we're so glad to be back home with our family.  Here's to hoping we can do it again one of these years!