December Life

Life has been crazy recently. With the start of December we've been mega busy cramming in as many "Christmases" as possible.  The girls have enjoyed going to their school parties,  the gymnastics team Christmas party,  going to the lights at the zoo and camp Jordan and so much more.  The girls and I are definitely going to enjoy our long break from school and work and as the new year approaches and settled upon us I will step out into yet another new job.  I can't get settled because there is always something more out there.  I feel like I'm called to touch the lives of as many people as possible.  I would feel guilty but I don't because I know this is what God wants from me.

I have been getting back into doing more zumba and staying in shape.  It's important to me to get fit so I can live a long and healthy life for my girls,  and if they ever chose to have children,  for them also. I feel so much better after a workout,  even if my body does ache.

Kylie is still really into gymnastics and that is going pretty well.  She has done two kips on the bar so far and that makes me very proud. Madilyn tried a new dance studio Thursday and she loved it.  I am glad she wants to continue in dance because I know it is something she will really enjoy!

I'm just getting ready for Christmas which is in 6 days and ready to settle in and enjoy the time with my girls while I have them.  I very much look forward to the week after Christmas as we are getting kylie's best friend from Kindergarten and I'm taking them both out to have a day together.  They are both super cool kids and I enjoy getting to know some school friends!

Well that's all for now

Maria

Lights at the zoo with squishy

Alice Elsa has been naughty this year

Kylie got an ornament at the Christmas party 

Team Christmas party 

Mallory and Kylie Jade

My sweet Madilyn growing too fast

Don you wanna build a snowman with Alice Elsa? 

Santa at camp Jordan 

Decorated tree

Santa parade at Hamilton Place mall with kaylee

Backhand spring practice for Madilyn 

Kylie Jade working on the kip

Trying a new ballet/tap class

Madilyn at her school Christmas party 

Kritter,  Kinsey and Madilyn 

Kylie Jade and Liam 

Kylie Jade and Hadassah 

Sisters at slick burgers 

Sneaking the m&ms 

Birthday sleepover with their cousins at the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel 

Ready to head home from a fun sleepover 

Met her goal of an all around of 34 

 

I Am Worth The Wait.

Quite often I find myself questioning my existence. Like, what purpose do I have on this Earth? I'm not liked by many, and the people who are supposed to be closest to me run and hide. I can't even get a hug without getting rejected first. I have felt useless for most of the past year. I get these highs were I feel like my world will be okay, but then I spiral downward and it is so hard to get out of the funk I am constantly in.

My children seem to be most identifiable by me. It seems everyone doesn't even see the real me because of my gorgeous girls. And that's okay. I mean I wanted both of my girls with everything in me and I am okay only being seen from behind them. Right now anyway. I, realistically, know I have a place, but trying to show others who want to stay blind to my changes has been a challenge.

I've kept in control of my emotions for the past year, for the most part, and I can see the world more clearly. I feel with more than anger and it has been a wild experience. I don't allow myself to hide behind hate anymore. I'm learning to love and let go of the pain. It isn't easy and often times I find myself reverting back, but I have to just breathe and remind myself that God is on my side. Always. Nothing I do will change that. I have struggled to have a true relationship with my God and it hasn't been easy. I'm not so great with the praying and I definitely don't attend church consistently week by week, but I want to feel loved and be loved and love with my whole self. It is hard. So hard. Especially when I take everything to heart and filter through the bad and the good. As I am learning to control my anger I have found I am way more sensitive than I ever have been. If you say something to me and I hear it the wrong way or take it the wrong way my guard comes back up. I hate being hurt and not caring was the best way to handle that for me, but it isn't the best way to handle that for everyone and I don't want my girls growing up thinking I felt zero emotions aside from anger.

I'm still quite the work in progress. I have set many goals for myself within the past year. I wanted to yell less and speak softer, I wanted to surround the world around me with love instead of anger and annoyance (which I still fail at often), I wanted to be a better wife and hear my husband more, I wanted to be a better parent and listen to my kids and discipline in better ways and be consistent and follow through on punishments more and not threaten what I am not going to do. I just want to be a better person and build a closer relationship with the Lord. I know I am worth waiting for. I know I am more than just Kylie and Madilyn's mom. I know I can be a better person all around. Express more empathy and show more kindness. I want to start in my home though. I want to show my husband he is the world to my little family and that his hard work is appreciated. I want my girls to know I love them, even when punishment is handed out to them. I want my house to be for the Lord.

As hectic as my schedule is I want to take the time this year to reflect on my life. The people around me. The world around me and spread the love. Big changes are coming and I am prepared for anything. Even if love isn't received back to me I want to love always through thick and thin. I want to make things right when everything is all wrong. It's a goal for the rest of the year and onto the next. A goal I may never achieve, but I want to honestly say to myself that I have done everything I could do. I have tried when I felt like the weight was too much to bear. I never gave up when I was given the cold shoulder. I just want to spread joy, love and cheer to everyone around me. That is going to be work for this year, but I believe I have it in me to do it! This is my purpose to prove that I can change from the inside out and show the people who doubt me that I am worth the wait. I am worth the wait.

It's All Going To Be Okay

I pray on a constant basis for my marriage, for the protection of my children, and for my soul. I bend often, but I have trouble letting go. I fail at so many things. When striving for perfection I fall short every single time. There is no escape from failure. It's a part of life. The only thing we can hope for is to learn from those failures and mistakes and keep pressing on. Life takes a heavy toll, my heart is weak, my mind races often with things of little importance, but it doesn't stop. The overwhelming anxiety I feel constantly makes me itchy, nervous. I feel so alone and then I feel so overwhelmed and coddled. It is a nightmare. My nightmare that I struggle with over and over and over again. It maximizes my failure and the failure of others. I constantly think of every situation and what could have been different. I can't shut my brain off. The wheels are constantly turning. Over and over and over again. I feel lost, a lot. Like I always catch the last part of every conversation. I am never present at the moment always contemplating what the next move is. I can't control the future. I can't control time. I can't control anything. So much pressure to let it all go, and I am overwhelmed at the beginning.

For a long time I thought it was me, I was weird, and I'd never learn to cope. As people have come in and out of my life I have realized how this is so untrue. I may be weird (for different reasons), but it sure is NOT uncommon to feel complete anxiety and stress. It has caused a strain in my life and I am sure it has in all my friends lives that I know struggle with this. It can be defeated and it can be controlled. I struggle with it every day, but I know it can be done. The overwhelming pressure to be perfect, to be pretty much everything I am not ever going to be has caused so much anxiety for me. I had to learn to let go. LET GO! For those who like to be in charge and take control of their lives this is almost impossible to wrap your brain around. Disappointments are maximized, failures are maximized, all those heavy emotions are maximized. It is so hard to control when you feel so out of control. I am learning, I am failing, but I am getting back up and trying again. 

This life isn't about winning, it's not about the battles it's about the reward at the end of the battles. What is waiting at the finish line. The only way to win is to submit. Submit the power, submit the control, submit to the reality that this life is only ours for an instant. Their lives are only mine for an instant. It will be over soon and what will I have to show for it? Stress? Anxiety? Mistakes? Worry? It's just something to ponder while you stay awake at night juggling through everything gone wrong.

You can't change the past,  but the futures up for grabs.  

Holiday Cheer

I can't believe that Thanksgiving is almost here.  I love this time of year once Halloween is over you hit the ground running with Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I believe The Holiday season starts the day after Halloween.  I just get this rush of excitement.  Christmas music on the radio, Christmas decorations flooding the stores.  Some say it's way too early,  but I am totally in the Christmas spirit at the beginning of November.

I just love this time of year with the lights,  music,  and traditions.  I love seeing my girls grow and blossom as they hit their half age milestones.  I love getting and decorating our Christmas tree.  I love decorating my house period.  I love the smell of fresh baked sugar cookies and love seeing the mess of icing and the girls making memories.  Ah,  the holiday season is just fantastic.

I'm about done with the kids for Christmas and I really believe they will have a wonderful year.  I can't wait to see their faces Christmas morning... Well I can wait because we have so much to look forward too in the month and a half we have til Christmas morning.  Until then I will bask in the beauty of this holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas!

We Have A Gymnast

My daughter is a gymnast and people don't quite understand what that means. She misses out on things because she is in the gym practicing. She spends most of her free time at gymnastics, or practicing at home. She loves the sport. If she didn't we wouldn't waste our time with it. People don't get it. I have encountered many people who think we "make" her do the sport.  You really think I want to disrupt my life for gymnastics, a sport I knew nothing about until recently? My daughter has shed many tears, has fallen on beams, off bars and ran and didn't land correctly on vault. She has slipped and fallen on her head learning back handsprings and she has ripped her hands, smashed her toes, bruised her legs all in the name of this sport. She loves it. It's her passion. I saw it early on when she was about 4. I knew this was going to be her thing. She started to become obsessed with perfecting her cartwheels and forward rolls. She would pay particular interest in how people would land their feet after a one handed cartwheel. She would come home talking about gymnastics and spent half her days in a hand stand. She loves it.

As we have started a new journey into a whole new gymnastics world I have really seen her come out of her shell as a gymnast. Practices are a lot more grueling than they had been previously and she is nailing skills she wasn't even attempting before. She is starting to really FEEL the movements instead of just doing it. She's been at her new gymnastics place for a month and my the difference you see in this child. She looks like a completely different gymnast and I've had a few people even tell me this. Bad habits are breaking and she is gaining more confidence. She doesn't get discouraged because other girls can do the shoot through and stride circle perfect every time. She always says, "I'm a different person and a different gymnast and I'll get it in my own time." She is right. She is different. She is exceptional in my eyes and while she is not placing first or even really placing in meets yet, we know she has the ability to do so. Her first competition was super rocky, and her second she looked better and had way more confidence (but she scored lower). The third competition she actually placed 5th on floor out of 9 girls in her group! It was thrilling to see her hard work for the past month paying off. She was grinning ear to ear and she was beyond excited for her medals! She scored a whopping 32.050 compared to the 29s she had been scoring at the previous meets. We have been so impressed by how much she has grown as a gymnast here recently. I expect great things from her if she continues to practice hard, try and wants to keep moving forward. 

We  have 9 more practices til the next gymnastics meet and she is bound and determined to run faster for vault, nail her stride circle and shoot through every time on bars, have a higher handstand, handstand dismount, and jump higher on beam, and perfect her floor routine and clean it up. She has set goals herself and I cannot wait to watch her continue her growth and stamina! 

My beautiful gymnast after her second ever gymnastics meet 

Floor on her second gymnastics meet

Mine in the bra/shorts look at those back muscles

First meet ever!

2nd meet and more confident

Beautiful girl on her first meet

3rd meet and 5th on floor =)

Practice makes perfect!

A New Journey

Kylie Jade is competing in her first ever gymnastics competition tomorrow. I am full of anxiety, nerves, stress and that sickness you get in the pit of your stomach. Kylie is full of excitement, nerves, enthusiasm, and hope.

I mentioned Kylie was competing, but I didn't mention that she is competing for a new team (she just started on Tuesday!) Moving Kylie's gymnastics center was a HUGE leap of faith. She has been with Jill's since she was 2 years old. I remember throwing her thin hair into pig tails and putting her little body into a child size leotard as she toddled off to class. I remember being pregnant with Madilyn and Jill working with Kylie on the beam. I remember my In laws taking Kylie to gymnastics as I held new born Madilyn in my arms. I remember Kylie moving into "big gymnastics" with Gym 1 and working on backhand springs with Coach Kaleigh. I even remember when Coach Bill put a not even 6.5 year old Kylie on Team Technique. You can imagine all the emotion it has taken to move her and I away from our gymnastics family and step into a new world of gymnasts with their family. I feel a bit like I am intruding and maybe that I am a bit obnoxious with all the questions, but they've given me no reason to feel that way. I just feel like I stepped into a whole new world and I am still not sure how to take it.

Kylie has such mixed emotions. One minute she is excited to be on a team with girls her age and the next minute she is crying because Ms. Jill won't be able to see her compete. It's been a hard transition for us both. 5 years of our life spent making memories with wonderful people and now it is gone. Kylie is very flexible, but this has been a big transition for her.

My little girl is so ready to compete though and unfortunately, she wasn't able to get that right now with Jill's team. Kylie is definitely not going to be perfect, she is going to make a ton of mistakes, and she is going to fall (I'm sure) more than once, but it isn't about being perfect it is about showing her passion and getting out there and seeing this world all for herself. She is ready to take that leap and see where it takes her.

This leap is going to be close to Nashville. A little over 2.5 hour drive from where I am now and I am going in blindly. I was thankful enough to have such kind ladies respond to my post in the moms group about what to expect. I will be a ball of anxiety tomorrow, but it will be worth it to see my girl doing what she loves.

Even as sad as I am to leave our home gym I know being at GCC will open up many new opportunities for Kylie Jade and I am excited to see what she does with it. Thank you to everyone at Jill's who has worked with my girl and been patient with us and thank you to all our new people who are putting up with my worry wart self. And thank you to my Kylie who is making her dreams into a reality.

 

2 year old Kylie

Where her love of gymnastics began

On the beam with coach Jill

 Christmas themed gymnastics

This kid growing up on me

A 3 year old gymnast

3 years old

Posing at 4

Won the front Hip circle challenge

Climbing the rope in Gym 2

My gymnasts

First learning that back handspring

6 years old and made team at level 3

Open Gym

These two gymnastics picture

Her favorite place on earth

6 year old hand stands

She got her competition leo

She never wanted to take it off

Tumbling queen at age 7

Open Gym with Allie and Jill

After a sweet Vault

New Leo 

Competition Leo for GCC