GRACE

Jared and I have been feeling quite sleep deprived lately...It feels like we have a newborn again. Over the past few weeks, the girls have been taking turns being sick, Chloe is teething, and Lucy is in a twin bed now which means she gets out of bed through the night as she pleases. Our new norm is to get up in the night at least once every night and it's starting to wear us thin. A lot of nights we get up 4 or 5 times with the girls and this recent time change hasn't helped! Our earliest riser is now getting up at 5:00! We have been consuming large amounts of coffee and taking big doses of patience and grace but it's not that easy. I don''t know about you but I need my coffee before I can truly function. When I'm up so early in the morning with Lucy after I hardly slept the night before, there is very little patience or grace, folks. Just being honest.

Chloe, my 14 month old is getting her 1 year molars in and therefore has spent the majority of the past few days screaming. Just walking around the house, aimlessly, screaming. It. Has. Been. a delight. :P

To get to the point; no, I'm not trying to vent online about how horrible my kids are, blah, blah, blah...
I want to share my outlook on getting through the tough times. We've all heard the phrase, "This too shall pass" and in my little world, that phrase offers me so much hope because it's true! Every tough phase that I've gone through in life has indeed either "passed" or God taught me how to live through it. For example; when each of our girls were newborns, we felt like we would never feel normal again! We were SO sleep deprived and I was on an emotional roller coaster with a touch of the baby blues. Eventually, our babies did learn how to sleep through the night though and we felt normal again, more rested, and ready to go through the next phases of parenthood. Right now I know, or at least I hope that our girls wont be getting up in the night forever. In the middle of the night and early in the morning, it's hard to have grace and to be patient and even loving but I just have to remember that wether they're sick, had a bad dream, teething, or just plain being ornery and not staying in their bed, I am called by God to treat them in the way that God treats us, His children.

I was up at around 5:30 this morning after a night of on and off sleeping and it would have been so easy to use my sleepiness as an excuse to be grouchy and let my kids sit in front of the tv all day but the show must go on. I've heard it said before that you have to be the person that you want your children to become. They are always watching us and mimicking our actions, good and bad. (scary!)

Even though I'm so tired and weary in this phase, I know that it too shall pass so until it does, I am going to make the choice to be a good mom. I will take my extra dose of patience in the morning. I will look to God's word for encouragement and strength. I will try my hardest to hold my tongue when I want to lash out because that only results in fear or resentment. I will be loving, caring, understanding, and fair. Most of all, I want my actions to reflect God's love. I want my children to see my love for Christ, not my anger and frustration toward them.

I know I will make mistakes. I've already made plenty, but while my children are still so little and impressionable, I want to give it my all to mold them into the women that Christ longs for them to be and to remember to apologize to them when I do mess up so that they know the difference between right and wrong. There are so many memories to be made in these years and I want those memories to be good ones.

I recommend reading, "Grace Based Parenting" by Dr. Tim Kimmel if you haven't already. I'm currently reading it and it was definitely the inspiration for this post. Here's a quote from the book to think about: "You've been handed a piece of history in advance--a gracious gift you send to a time you will not see.

No, I'm not M.I.A

Whew! These past two months have been a whirlwind! Let me get you up to speed on all the happenings.

Since my last post I have been training for the half marathon, started a new job as a pre-school teacher and therefor put my kiddos in the pre-school where I teach, injured my knee from running, was sick and had sick children on and off, husband traveled for work, 2 of my daughters had birthdays, I had a birthday, Lily-Kate started dance, and Jared and I started working in our church's youth group on Wednesday nights. I'm out of breath from typing all of that. ;)

Let's start with running. A few weeks ago, when attempting my 7 mile run, I felt a new kind of soreness in my left knee. Seeing as I am a new (stupid) runner, I didn't pay much attention to it, thinking no pain no gain, right? Wrong! I tried to run 6 miles the next week and had to stop after mile 4 because my knee was in so much pain. I iced it at least once a day for a week and took about 2 weeks off from training as well as purchasing some new running shoes from Fleet Feet, per the advice of a more knowledgable, more experienced runner friend. You know who you are. ;)
Once the knee was feeling better I got back to running, starting at 3 miles and now I'm up to 9 miles. 9 miles!!! I'm incredibly proud of myself because I NEVER thought that was possible! I will be running my first 15k race this Saturday, the Tulsa Run, and the Route 66 half marathon is in 4 weeks!

The job: A couple weeks after my daughter had started pre-k, the preschool director at our church approached me about taking on a teaching position. One of the teachers had decided last minute to not teach this year and the school year was about to start. The director told me that all 3 girls could attend Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and I would only teach Tuesday and Thursday. That meant I would have 1 day a week all to myself to do whatever I needed to do/ wanted to do. Ever since our third child was born, I had been saying, If I could just have ONE day to myself, I could get so much accomplished and that's exactly what I got! One day where I can clean the bathrooms, do the dishes, or go shopping minus the kiddos. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely treasure my time at home with the girls, I really do, BUT, I have a 14 month old who insists on "helping" me load the dish washer and who unrolls an entire roll of toilet paper while I try to clean the bathroom and two other little helpers who think that if I'm sweeping, they need to sweep too with their little play brooms and suddenly my pile of dust and crumbs on the floor is once again strewn about the house. (sigh) When I'm home with the girls, I'd much rather be playing with them so that's why this "mommy day" is so nice. Also, now that we are a family of 5, we are so thankful for the extra money. I didn't think there was any way I could have a job at this phase in our life but this job provides me with the ability to take the girls with me. I love teaching my class of 3 year olds. They are at such an enjoyable age. It's definitely a challenge but I do love it. I'm so thankful that I was given the opportunity to work amongst friends at  a christian pre-school and share the love of Christ with the little boys and girls in my class and also SO grateful that my girls have the opportunity to attend! They LOVE it  and have learned so much already! We took Lily-Kate out of public school but she will return next year for kindergarten. (tear) God basically opened the door and lovingly pushed me through it with this job. =)

Life is BUSY, folks, but we are happy, blessed, and doing the best we can during these precious years while our kiddos are little. =)

Here are a few pics of what we've been up to the past couple months.

LK's first day of pre-k

Poor LK had a stomach virus on the day of her birthday party so we had to reschedule.

The baby had her first birthday!

birthday tea party with mommy.

first cupcake!

combined family birthday party for LK and Chloe at El Tequilla.

LK's rescheduled birthday party. It was SO hot!

....then Lucy got the stomach bug...a few times.

...and Chloe got it as well... :(

The big girls being cute as always.

A family trip to the zoo.

Lily-Kate started dance classes with her little friends ;)

Ice cream after her first class. According to LK, this face is a "fancy smile".

Chloe getting into EVERYTHING! 

Lucy with purchasing her first ever big girl panties! Exciting times.

Lucy potty training while LK gives her a pedicure. ;)

Jared and LK took and father daughter camping trip where LK caught her first fish!

I started adding miles with my running, thus learned how to supplement before, during, and after my 

runs.

we took our annual trip to the pumpkin patch in Claremore 

Love this pic. Me and my little ducks.

pumpkin ring toss

I ran the Tulsa Run 15k!

It's starting to look like fall at our house.

Costume night at dance class! Adorbs, right? ;)

Well, that's what we've been up to! Until next post.

The big girl

My sweet Lily-Kate, my big girl, will be 4 years old on August 25th. Because of the date of her birthday, we had the option to go ahead and put her in pre-k this year or wait until next year. We weren't too fond of the idea of her being the youngest, smallest, kid in her class but she is so mature and is so ready for some kind of learning/ crafting outlet so we decided to let her start pre-k this year through our public school system. It's only 2 1/2 hours a day so it's just enough time for her to go play and learn without missing mommy too much. ;)

Lily-Kate is very much my "minnie me". She wants to everything I do, go everywhere I go, etc. She loves when her and I do "big girl things" together, just the two of us. For a week or so, she'd been asking me to do something "fancy" with her, just the two of us. I figured it would be a good idea to do something special with her before she started school so we had a "fancy day". 

Now, I'm as girly as they come, but I wasn't exactly sure what her expectations of a fancy day were....

She said we had to wear long dresses, eat chocolate, and go somewhere fancy. Apparently, the dress I had worn to church that day was not fancy enough so she made me change into a maxi dress because everyone knows, you're not fancy unless you're wearing a long dress. ;)

I wasn't sure where to take her for our fancy place. We have an Olive Garden in town which I figured she would consider "fancy" and I knew she'd love their black tie mousse cake!

Below is her expression after her first bite of the cake. ;)

We easily finished it off!

For our next event, I decided to take her to get her first manicure.

She just made herself right at home, reading magazines. (National Geographic, to be specific)

In the picture below on the right, she showed me this picture and said, "Mommy, look at this old lady! She's gorgeous. I love her." =) She made quite a few ladies in the waiting area chuckle.

As soon as she started soaking her nails, she was in heaven. ;)

The final product!

We had so much fun together and I was given the best mommy ever award! ;)

I love all my little Tabblettes the same but every once in a while it's so nice to do something special with just one of them, to really get to know each one of them as an individual and to make them feel special. With 3 kiddos all so close in age, it's easy for one of them to feel lost in the shuffle. I'm thankful for these special times I get to have with my girls and look forward to our next "fancy day!"

Do you do any kind of special day every so often for your kiddos? Do you do it monthly? Yearly? At random?

Frap without the fat!

SO excited! I just made myself a guilt free starbucks style frap that actually tastes good! You'll want to save this recipe!

Guilt free frap

ingredients:

1/2-3/4 cup cold coffee, depending on how strong of a coffee taste you like.

2/3 cup fat free milk

4 packets of splenda (more if you prefer your coffee drinks to taste more like milkshakes) ;)

3 Tbls unsweetened cocoa powder

12-15 ice cubes depending on how much coffee you're using.

Put all ingredients in blender. Blend and enjoy!
Roughly only 110 calories!!!

Want to make it more decadent? Add a dollop of fat free cool whip and some mini dark chocolate chips.  

Make it a meal replacement by using a scoop of chocolate protein powder instead of the splenda and cocoa powder and throw in half a banana and a tablespoon of all natural peanut butter! Yum!

Enjoy! <3 <3 <3

Perspective.

You know that moment where you feel your heart plop into your stomach because you suddenly realize what a fool you've been?...That was what I felt Sunday morning in our Sunday school class. The topic of our lesson was "perspective" and that was exactly what I needed. Perspective.

You see, last week, I'm pretty positive that I spent the majority of my time moping...and no, I didn't mean to type "mopping", like I should have been doing, but moping. One "p". I was feeling so sorry for myself, thinking about how horribly hard my life is at this moment! I mean, I'm training for a half marathon which means getting up around 5:00 every morning to follow my training plan, I have a teething baby who seems to want to let the whole world know she's cutting teeth, a toddler who refuses to eat most of the time and is quite sassy, and a pre-schooler who's recently decided she's better off not taking naps. I was feeling like the best thing to do all day was skim through pinterest while I let the t.v. babysit my kids and if they dare "bother" me while I'm trying to "work" then they'd hear about it. When my poor husband got home from work, he'd have to hear all about how horrible the day was and how the baby wouldn't sleep and just cried all day and Lily-Kate spilled her milk on the rug, and Lucy wouldn't eat anything I fed her...etc. 

In my mind, all of those things seemed like such a big deal last week, to the point where I felt I "deserved" time alone at the end of each day, watching mindless television and eating whatever comfort food I needed to make me feel better because I have it hard. But on Sunday morning, thankfully, Jesus tugged on my heart strings, pulled me in tight, and gave me a loving reality slap. ;) 

There's a married couple that's a part of our Sunday school class and the wife/ mother has cancer. She has a young child whom the husband is currently taking care of by himself because the woman is in Texas at a cancer treatment center. Talk about hard times. I've known about this family for a while but hearing the husband give our Sunday school class an update on his wife this past Sunday, it just hit me that my life is so easy! SO incredibly easy! I get the privilege of having my husband come home to us every night after work to help me tag team this parenting thing, I am also privileged to get the opportunity to stay home with my children. We are all so healthy. We've never had any major accidents. I could go on and on about all the things we have to be grateful for and all the ways we have been blessed.

After almost having a tearful breakdown right in the middle of our Sunday school lesson, I decided it was time to get up, brush the dirt off my pants, put on my big girl panties, and get back to being the kind of mother I want to be. The kind of mother my girls need me to be. The kind of mother God calls me to be.

My husband is out of town for a few days so my game plan was this:
-Be the absolute best mommy you can be while Jared is gone.
-find ways to bond with the girls
-Patience. Patience. Patience. 
-put the girls happiness and love cup ahead of the housework.

Jared has only been gone a little over 24 hours but so far so good....Well, actually Great! We've been giving out extra kisses and snuggles, working out our problems in a more calm, quieter way, and I'm reminded that when my sweet little baby is crying, it's not because she wants to annoy me. ;) I need to take in this time while my little Chloe is still so small and cuddle her as much as she needs to be cuddled while those sharp teeth are moving in.

When times get tough, all you need is a little perspective. 

Introducing the Tabb family

Hi!
First of all, let me just say thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts. Also, please excuse any grammatical errors. ;)

My name is Melinda Tabb. I have been married to the perfect man for 5 years and we have three beautiful little girls, our "Tabblettes".

 Our first family picture after giving birth to "Tabblette #3" ;)

You may be thinking, "three kids in 5 years of marriage?!" Yes. After we had been married for 8 months, we were surprised to find out I was pregnant and after that they just kept coming! ;) It's crazy around here but we are so happy and feel so blessed to have 3 beautiful, healthy girls.

Our Oldest daughter's name is Lily Kathryn. We call her Lily-Kate or "LK". She is almost 4 years old and will soon be starting pre-k in our public schools. We are very excited/ nervous! She is the mommy of the bunch and looks out for her sisters. She's tender hearted, compassionate, and outgoing.

 Our 2nd daughter's name is Lucy Isabelle. She is 2 years old. She is one sassy gal but also extremely loving and snuggly. In public she's incredibly timid and shy but at home, she thinks she rules the roost. Couldn't imagine not having this little firecracker as a part of our family.

Last but not least we have Chloe Paige who is almost 1! She was born with a head of bright red hair and is our "little red". She makes our family complete. Her big sisters love to help take care of her and she adores them! She's currently pulling up on every piece of furniture in the house and trying to start walking. Exciting times!

 We live in Owasso, OK, a small-ish town that's a suburb of Tulsa. I am a stay at home mom and I love it! I used to be a hairstylist and might go back to that some day when my children are older. I'm currently training for my very first half marathon and am terrified about the big day, November 24th! More about that later. My husband's name is Jared. He is an electrical engineer and the smartest person I know! I think he gets a direct feed from google to his brain. Even after 5 years and 3 kids, we are still madly in love. He truly is my prince charming. I couldn't ask for a better father to our girls. He's exactly the kind of man that I hope our girls will end up with someday. The boys that our girls date have some big shoes to fill!

 Jared and Lily-Kate at kiddie park

My love and I

Well, that's us. We're a very ordinary family, doing the best we can to raise our children the way God would want us to, to have a marriage that reflects God's love, and to teach our children what truly matters in life. I hope you enjoy reading about the ups, downs, excitement, and chaos that makes my world go round. :)