Happy Mother's Day

I am well aware that for many this day is not a celebration.

 I realize what a gift it is to have the blessing of my son and to be his Mother. 

For the Mommy who has lost a child

For the Mommy whose son or daughter has gone astray

For the Mommy with no children of her own, but who cares for others like they are her own blood

For the Mommy who can not conceive yet longs for a baby

For the Mommy who has rescued orphans from darkness

For the Mommy who has a sick child

For the Mommy who is sick

For the Mommy who is alone with no one to help her raise her children

For the Mommy working hard to pay the bills

For the Mommy who made a hard choice and let others raise her child

For the Mommy who is sleep deprived with sticky floors and windows

For the Mommy with her hands full and a heart full of love.

I praise you and appreciate you. Happy Mother's Day to all the Mommy's.

VALENTINE'S DAY

Originally posted on February 14, 2014

I've been thinking a lot about this holiday coming up...

I have a board on Pinterest full of recipes, desserts, date ideas, decor and more revolving around Valentine's Day.

It's easy to get caught up in the commercialized aspect of Valentine's Day. As it turns out Valentine's Day is here

and I've got nothing planned except what I am hoping is my last doctor's appointment before I have my baby.

I didn't cook anything or put up any special decorations. I haven't even written in my husband's card yet.

I started to feel a little guilty about my lack of enthusiasm until tonight.

I started thinking...

Why is there an extra emphasis on this one day to craft, create and cook.

Why isn't more of our energy put into really pouring love into others? 

Instead of us women running ourselves ragged trying to do more we could just focus on loving.

We could smile more, hug more and spend quality time with those we love.

In my opinion this would be a much better use of our time and energy. I'm as guilty as anyone of having big ambitions for these types of days and feeling like less of a woman when my big plans fall short.

So, here is my encouragement for you ladies on Valentine's Day.

Don't worry about the things that you didn't get done.

Enjoy yourself today, because you are enough for your family. They don't need all the fluff. 

Enjoy being spoiled by those you love and enjoy loving them back.

Stuff your face with as much chocolate as you want and listen to the cheesy love songs.

Dress festive, but don't feel bad if your festive clothing is a pink scrunchie and yoga pants!

Happy Valentine's Day. 

Here are some wedding pics of me and my honey in honor of this special holiday.

I'm going to go write in his card now! 

XO 

Ash

Sweet Baby

Dear Titus,

You are kicking and squirming all of the time now. Every time I feel you move I am fascinated by you.
I can't believe that I get to be your mommy and that one day soon I will be holding you. 
I promise that I am excited for your arrival although I am not quite prepared for you to come just yet. I feel guilty that your nursery looks the way that it does and that we don't have all of the things that you need as of now. It doesn't mean that we aren't excited for you. You will be spoiled rotten I'm sure of it... we've just been procrastinating. Christmas will be good for you this year even though you won't really be here to experience it. Daddy and I have been dreaming about next Christmas when we will have you here with us. We are so unbelievably excited for all the ways that you are going to change our world. Our family will be complete once you are born. God has truly blessed us with you. You are a miracle, little boy and we are already wrecked with our love for you. Only a couple more months of me carrying you in my belly and as badly as I want to fast forward to your birthday I am enjoying this time of bonding for just the two of us. I can't wait to see your eyes and nose and squishy lips. We saw them on an ultrasound a couple of days ago, but its hard to tell much. However, I can see that you are beautiful. I am hoping that you have your daddy's dimples and that your smile lights up every room you enter. We will have to wait and see. Mommy loves you. Counting down the days until I hold you in my arms. 

Slowing Down

Panic is starting to set in.
I will be 30 weeks on Thursday and I am feeling extremely overwhelmed.

Titus will be here before we know it and his nursery is nowhere near complete. He literally has nothing but a handful of clothes. I swear I am the worst procrastinator. It's also Christmas time which means we have parties to attend, a house to decorate and Christmas shopping that has to be done. I sort of feel like I'm drowning when I think of all of it.  However, Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year and even though I feel that there are a million things to do I really want to savor and enjoy the reason for the season. I want to slow down. Especially since this last year has been such a whirl wind.

Zack and I had a conversation today when he came home for lunch about what we want to do on Christmas Day. We will be alone on the 25th since we aren't able to travel. I'm partially sad to not be with our families, but I am also pretty excited now that we have planned our day. We have decided that on Christmas Day we will make our plans and goals for 2014. We want to set goals for our marriage, for our child that we are expecting, and for our ministry. I am planning to make some printables for us to fill out that I will hopefully be able to share with you all so you can be intentional about 2014 also.

Anyway, all this talk of setting goals and being intentional about our home got me thinking. I want to go ahead and start. I know we are already 9 days into December, but I wanted to share some things that I am planning on doing from now until the 25th to soak in the rest of the holiday season.

1) Advent reading plan.
I think it is VERY important to read Scripture throughout this month on the birth of Christ and the true Christmas story. I would encourage you to sit down with your children and read these passages to them before bed each night. I'm sure it would give them precious memories that they will cherish forever. Feel free to save this image, pin it, or share it. I made it for you!

2) Write an encouraging note.
I'm planning on for the next two weeks writing a handful of encouraging notes to some people that have been a blessing to me and could probably use the encouragement. This could be to your Pastor, a high school student who is serving in your church or the person who cares for your children when you are at work. I wish I could afford to buy a bunch of Christmas gifts for people that I want to encourage, but most of the time words mean so much more.

3) Reflect on the last year. 
You may have had one of the best years of your life or one of your worst. I certainly don't know your story, but I know that this year was really hard for me. Although it was very difficult at times, it was a year where I saw God work in my life in the most tangible way. I don't want to forget that. I am going to write a summary of the last year in my journal along with the best memories that I can think of from each month of this past year. A lot has happened and I want to remember the good times.

This is certainly not your typical drink hot chocolate and go for a drive to see Christmas lights list of things to do. I hope that wasn't what you were expecting. These are just some things that won't cost you any money, but will give you some fulfillment during this season. I would love to hear how it goes if you try these things. Also, what would you add to this list?
Let's be intentional and purposeful during the next couple of weeks.

Let's slow down.

XO,

Ash

Back to Blogging

It has been months, several months since I have written a blog post. I have journaled privately, but I haven't felt like I've had anything to publicly share for a long while. I am excited and nervous to be back and I want to dedicate a lot of time to making this blog an encouragement and inspiration for others.

So, where have I been for the last seven months?

I have been trying to make sense of my life and the direction that God has for me and my family. 
I'm really not trying to be heavy, I just want to be honest about what I've been going through.

Zack and I moved from Georgia to Texas in May and now we have once again moved and are living in Ohio. So basically, we have been married for a year and a half and have lived in three different states. Oh, and did I mention that I am six months pregnant? It's been a wild ride. I can honestly say that I do not understand what God was doing in our lives and so I didn't know what to tell people or what to write. I felt like I had to explain to everyone why we made the decisions that we have made, but all I can say is we are obeying God's direction and guidance. I won't go into detail on everything that has happened in the last year and you wouldn't want to hear about it, believe me. All I can say is I have felt a little confused and lost myself so I didn't want to blog for the last several months.

I finally realized how silly that is. I feel that I have put an unrealistic pressure on myself to portray myself and my husband in a way that makes us look like we have it all together- and I am so sorry. You see, I think that we have a tendency in our culture to only share the best of the best. When I upload a picture to Instagram I obviously crop out the dirty sock or anything else unpleasant to give you the best picture possible. So what you see is my handsome husband holding my adorable puppy on a very clean, staged couch, and you may get the wrong impression of what our life is like. I hope this makes sense.

I've also been terribly intimidated by other bloggers. I love reading other blogs and seeing these beautiful women mother their beautiful children while crafting and cooking and writing these life changing posts on how wonderful their lives are. I really do love and appreciate their blogs, I just don't love how it has affected me. It made me feel that I needed more. I needed a bigger house with prettier things and I needed to be amazing at everything and my pictures had to prove that. So, because I don't have all the things I thought I needed, I didn't want to put myself out there. I was embarrassed. But, I've come to the realization that I may not be the only person who feels that way. So, I've decided that I am going to share my life and my family and my ministry on this blog and just be real.

I'm back for good.

Honestly, I still want to capture the best moments. I don't think that my best moments will be all that fabulous though. I am just me. I'm a normal, young newlywed who is experiencing pregnancy for the first time and I want to share that. I want to remember that. I thought I had to post these beautiful pictures of my baby bump and have the most fabulous nursery for anyone to care. But, let's be honest, there is not a whole lot of glamour involved in pregnancy as Pinterest would have us to believe. I am in my sweats with a headache and a UTI right now and my nursery is basically a storage room of all the boxes we've yet to unpack. Pregnancy is still beautiful, but not fabulous in the least. But, you should know that our baby is a boy and we are due February 20. His name is Titus and I swear I am already obsessed with this child. February can't get here fast enough!

Zack and I now live in Warren, Ohio and we are the happiest that we've ever been. I feel totally at peace about where God has us and am so excited for the ministry that we are involved in. We are renting a two bedroom, one bathroom house that is old and dishwasherless. I am grateful anyway. We painted the walls a light blue and have worked to make it cute and homey for us.

Stick around and follow the blog, cause it's about to get real up in here! I'm excited.

I missed you all.

XO, Ash

Forever

howdy.

It has been forever since I have posted on my blog. It must feel so neglected. 

I have a really good excuse. Zack and I moved to TEXAS! Needless to say, we've been pretty busy.
I guess I will catch you up in pictures!

We flew first class on our first visit to Texas! Classy, right?

These two lovebirds had a photo shoot thanks to me and then we had a double date! Love my bestie.

Our little family snuggling :)

Second trip to Texas and we rented a mini van! Swag!

Zack's class gave him a going away party!

We moved everything into storage for one month and these cuties helped!

This girl is getting married a week from today! Woo!

We went to Florida to spend Easter with the family!

Jack with Auntie Mills

Chinese fortune cookie message. :)

The day my parents moved out of their house.

 

My daddy celebrated his birthday and preached his first sermon as Pastor of Grace.

Ohio fun :) My parents and little sisters moved there.

Staying at my older sisters. Jack enjoyed playing with his cousins. :)

Jesse had ACL surgery and we brought him some goodies and told him goodbye :(

We visited family in Arkansas on our way to Texas and my Grandpa gave me a shotgun for protection!

I can't wait to update everyone on what is going on here in Texas! 

God has already been so good to us and is blessing this ministry.

 Please pray for us as we continue to transition and make this adjustment. 

I'll share some pics of the house soon! COMING NEXT!

XOXO

~Ashle'

My weekend in iPhone pics

Hubbin and I had a pretty fun weekend.

We snuck off to Florida since he was off work all of last week. 

I ate at Tijuana Flats for the first time & it was deeelish!

I also went to the World Market for the first time and I wanted to buy everything!

Its a good thing that hubbin was with me or I could have done a lot of unnecessary damage in there..

We went down to see the beach for a few minutes even though it was rainy and cold.

Bummer.

It was still very beautiful.

The ocean gets me every time. God is so much bigger than I could ever imagine.

Follow me on instagram @Ashle_Potter

Have a lovely week!