The Only Time It's Okay to Lie

            I can usually get along with most people, but there’s one type of person I can’t stand – a liar.

            Honesty is one of the most important qualities a person can have in my opinion, especially in an intimate relationship like a marriage. And I don't mean honest simply when asked a direct question – I mean honest as in not even trying to mislead or sugarcoat things. Even if I don’t think Taylor is going to like what I have to say, I try very, very hard to always tell him the truth.

            That being said, there is one circumstance when I will, without hesitation, look you in the face and lie to you - and I won't even feel bad about it.

            If I am in the early stages of pregnancy and not yet ready to tell people, I will do all I can to mislead them from that truth… And lately I’ve been doing a lot of lying. ;)

            Taylor and I are expecting another baby in mid July. Adding Taylee to our lives and becoming parents has been the most amazing gift God could have given us, so we’re really excited to see what this next baby will further bring to our family!

We told my family when we went back to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday earlier this month, and then we waited to surprise Taylor's family during our Christmas Eve celebrations.

It was an exciting Christmas knowing we were going to be sharing our news, but Taylor and I were both really excited to watch Taylee this Christmas. 

She didn't seem to care too much about unwrapping the presents, but she did enjoy playing with her many new toys once we got them out of the boxes.

Taylor and I got her a baby doll and stroller that she really seems to enjoy. We figured it would be a good training tool for her new little brother or sister (we are going to wait to find out if it's a boy or a girl - nothing beats getting that wonderful surprise in the delivery room!)

With the Christmas season having just gone by, this Scripture was very fitting, and one I particularly liked.
"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May your word to me be fulfilled." Luke 1:38

I pray that I would be able to respond to the Lord's requests of me the way Mary did - by being a simple, humble servant, seeking to put God's will above my own.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Love,
Lyndee

My Memory Needs a Lot of Work

I do not claim to have a good memory.
Some people say, "I don't remember names, but I can remember faces." I can't even say that - both names and faces frequently elude my recollection. (About the only thing I feel I can remember better than most are quotes from Walt Disney movies). ;)
Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that my husband, Taylor, has a much better memory than me, there's a good chance we wouldn't be married.

I met Taylor in Psychology class at K-State... that I remember. But actually Taylor and I first met at a Thanksgiving party a couple months earlier. I was dating someone else at the time, but apparently Taylor sat down next to me on the couch at one point during the party and we had a conversation.
I remember none of it. Thankfully Taylor remembered me and reintroduced himself before our first psychology class. By this time I was no longer dating anyone, and from there the rest is history.

I think a lot of times my lack of memory is simply a result of a lack of a concentrated effort on my part. It can be frustrating to be around someone who obviously can remember me when I have no clue who they are. It makes me feel terribly rude.
But in all actuality this scenario is simply an inconvenience.
Last week while listening to an audio book called "The Insanity of God" I heard a true story about a group of young adults in Russia who were at some sort of Christian conference in the 1950s, and they were challenged to see how much of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John they could remember. Working as a group they were able to write all four gospels in their entirety with fewer than 10 mistakes.
And this was during a time when they could be persecuted for their faith.
It makes me ashamed to say, even as someone who has given her life to Christ, who reads her Bible or does devotions daily (and can do so without persecution) - if I had been in that group of Russians, I would have been able to add very, very little to their efforts.

One Scripture I do know is Psalm 119:11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
If I truly want to know Christ more and be a better disciple for Him, then I need to learn His Word - not just simply read it, letting it pass straight through my brain. I need it where I can draw it to mind. I need it for reference when real-life situations bring me up short. I want His Word in my heart where He can speak to me through it.
So I'm going to make it a goal to learn one new Scripture per week. I'm going to put it on the lock screen of my phone, and each time I unlock my phone I want to recite the Scripture. The Bible app I have on my phone has easily savable Scriptures that I think will work well for this. This is the Scripture I'm going to work on this week.

Since my last blog...

Taylee turned one and started walking. She's on the go constantly now! Her favorite thing is to go outside.

Taylor and I celebrated 6 years of marriage. We celebrated by spending a day at the zoo with some good friends.

We had some wonderful time with family as they stopped to visit on their way to and from vacation in Colorado

 And we got to meet Taylee's new twin cousins!

Hope you all have a great rest of the week! Best of luck with all the things you want to remember. :)

Lyndee

There's so many things I can't do with a baby

I like feeling useful. Soon after Taylor and I got married, his family needed my help during harvest. They taught me how to run the grain cart, and I truly enjoyed the feeling of having an important role in the operation.
When Taylee was born last summer, I took maternity leave during the fall harvest. And when wheat harvest rolled around this year, I knew it wouldn't work very well to still be nursing and trying to run a grain cart at the same time... so once again, except for a couple of small occasions when I filled in, I wasn't in the grain cart.

Once upon a time it would have bothered me not to get to play my part - to be an important member of the team working hard out in the fields.
But on those short occasions when I did run the grain cart this year, my mind wasn't fully on my task.  While it felt great to be back out there, working with my husband in the beautiful wheat fields, my new identity as a mom took precedence.
I wanted to be the one to feed my daughter, get her ready for bed, put her to sleep using the bedtime routine we've been working on...

Not driving grain cart is just one example of the way having a baby has changed my life, and while there may be a lot of things I can't do right now, it's ok because what I can do is be a good mom to my little girl and that, to me, is greater than anything else.

Plus I still got to help with one of the most important parts of harvest this year, cooking meals to bring to the field. ;)

Taylee loved crawling around in the food trailer when we took meals out to the field.

This past weekend we had a new experience around our house. A couple of months ago we ordered some broiler chickens to grow, and on Saturday we harvested them. We never had chickens growing up, so it was a first for me.

It was a neat experience, but the best  move we made was to order a chicken plucking machine beforehand.

Showing Taylee where the chicken strips
she loves come from. :)

We were a little late butchering
our chickens, so our birds
were large and in charge. 

We had seen a video of one on Facebook and decided it would be worth a try. I didn't expect it would work as well as it did in the video, but I was pleasantly surprised. It worked like a dream. After dipping the chicken in hot water, we stuck it in the plucker and in under a minute the bird was completely plucked. I took a video on Snapchat but I can't get it to upload properly to this site.


Roshel and I cut the chicken up into pieces like you'd buy at the store. I'd never cut up a whole chicken before, but after watching a YouTube video a couple of times I was able to get the job done. It felt good to learn a new skill, and I'm looking forward to trying some of our home-grown chicken.

Here is a recent Scripture lesson I want to carry in my heart -

Midean so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help. Judges 6:6

The lesson that accompanied this Scripture talked about how God knows the thing we need the most is to have a relationship with Him, and He will do whatever it takes to make that happen - even if it means taking away all our earthly possessions so we have to rely on Him.
The thing I want most in this life is to serve my God, so no matter what it takes, I pray He will use any means necessary to make me entirely and truly His.

Hope you all have a great rest of the week!
Lyndee

Where You Go, I Will Follow...Even to South Dakota

There are so many things I love about Easter. Most of all I love getting ready and going to church on Easter Sunday, knowing that we are celebrating the most holy of days - the day Christ defeated death and bought our salvation. Ever since college, when my relationship with Christ changed and grew, Easter has become even more important to me.

And then there are all the other little Easter details that are the icing on the cake...family meals with delicious, refreshing dishes and desserts that always make me think of spring... the promise of new life in nearly all of nature - beautiful flowers blooming, grass greening up, the promise of warm, sunny days ahead... so on and so forth.

So, admittedly, when I found out that a bull sale in South Dakota we were planning to go to was on the Saturday before Easter, I was pretty disappointed. I hated to think I would be missing out on all those things I really love about Easter because we would be traveling.
It wouldn't have been that crazy for me to say that Taylor could go to the sale, and I would stay home with Taylee. After all, that's a long drive for a baby on top of it being Easter weekend... but that's not how Taylor and I want to approach things.

We've never been the "you-do-your-thing-and-I'll-do-mine" type of relationship. It's important to us to do things together. We share a bank account (and all the loans) ;)... We sit down for supper together as often as possible... We work in our garden together... Heck, we even shower together when we can!

The most beneficial class I have ever taken was a class at K-State called Family Studies with an amazing teacher, Kelly Welch. And one of the things she said that really stuck with me was "People don't fall out of love. They fall out of intimacy."

If Taylor and I are constantly doing things independently of each other, how can we develop and strengthen the intimacy that is so very important to a successful marriage?

So... we went to the bull sale in South Dakota together. And even though we weren't sitting in church on Sunday morning, I believe God was still glorified. I think He rejoiced in the strengthening of our marriage - a commitment we made before Him - through time spent together and some good conversation we were able to have in the car on Easter morning.  And He was glorified as we listened to a wonderful book called This Life I Live by Rory Feek where he tells about the ways God and his wife, Joey, changed his life.

I may hope that next year I'll be able to sit in a pew with my family and worship on Easter morning, but I'll cherish the memories from this Easter as well.

We ended up getting three really good bulls for our cows. I enjoyed going through all the animals with Taylor, figuring out the best ones, and seeing Taylor's excitement about the quality of the animals we got.

We got back home Easter afternoon, and Taylee got to open her Easter basket from Grandma and Grandpa Stabel, including this cute, little Easter bunny hat. :)

Taylor and I try to do a lot of things together, but on occasion it doesn't always work out. We hadn't been back to my parents' since Christmas, so last weekend I made a trip up to see them with Taylee. Taylor stayed home to be prepared since there was a chance of snow and it's a good thing he did - we had a full-blown blizzard on April 30th. I loved getting to spend a relaxing weekend with my family, but I felt terrible for Taylor and all the feedyard employees. They worked extremely hard to try and take care of the cattle in the feedyard through the blizzard. We lost power at our house, so I stayed an extra day at Mom & Dad's to avoid hazardous driving conditions and to give the power company a chance to get our electricity back on.

On Sunday night we watched some old episodes of the Grand Ole Opry. Taylee got to dance around the kitchen with Grandma and Grandpa and help Kallan with her piano practice.

This is a picture of my garden with at least a foot of snow covering the whole thing.

We got between 1 and 2 feet of extremely wet snow on April 30th. There were drifts higher than my jeep at the entrance of the feedyard, and as I was driving home from my parents, I went a mile where every single power line was snapped off from the wind and weight of the heavy snow. Many people were still without power a week later, and many cattle were lost across the entire western part of the state. Please keep these people and their animals in your prayers as they recover from this harsh weather.

"Obey me, and I will be your God, and you will be my people. Do everything as I say, and all will be well!" Jeremiah 7:23

The lesson that accompanied this Scripture was a really good one. It reminded me that I am not responsible for the actions of others - I am only responsible for my actions and obeying my Lord. Everything else I will trust to Him.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Lyndee

The Process of Teamwork

Not too long ago I was listening to a book by Chip and Joanna Gaines, the people from the reality show Fixer Upper. I had never watched their show before and didn’t know much about them, but they are a husband and wife team that work together remodeling homes. In one part of the book they talk about how they make such a good team because they seem to energize each other the more they work together.

I have to say, that’s a special relationship.

After five years of marriage and 7 months as new parents, I can honestly say Taylor and I make a good team… but that doesn’t mean working together has always been easy.

We still joke that one of our biggest…um… shall we say “marriage building” experiences came when we were working cattle together after we’d been married for over a couple of years.

We’d just bought the growyard and gotten it up and running, but our hospital barn was still in the process of being built, so we had a portable pen with a manual chute set up so we could treat any cattle that needed it.

It was early one morning in June during wheat harvest. Taylor and I were hurrying to go feed cattle before heading to the field, but when we got there we noticed a new pen had a bunch of cattle that needed to be treated. So we fed, and then spent the next couple of hours sorting over a hundred head of cattle and treating any that were in need of some medicine. But the portable pen and manual chute definitely made the job more than a little difficult, and during that time a few cattle slipped by me or didn’t get caught in the chute quickly enough and we’d have to go back through and sort them out again. Long story short, trying to be good caretakers of the cattle entrusted to us, and trying to get a new business up and running, while also trying to hurry and get to the field to cut wheat made for a stressful situation. And let’s just say by the time we were done, Taylor and I didn’t walk away holding hands.

But we learned from the situation, and our marriage grew stronger from it. We’re a long ways from perfect, but we have become more patient with each other in our weaknesses and learned to play more to each other’s strengths.

When we are working together well, it’s really satisfying to see how much we can accomplish together. We had a nice, warm weekend earlier this February, and within a single afternoon we had cleaned up our garden so it could be ready when we start planting things this spring; We cleaned out our chicken coop and spread the litter on the garden; and we swept and reorganized the tack room in our calf shed. It was a really enjoyable day made even better when Taylor ran to town to pick up barbeque for supper so we could relax together instead of me spending the rest of the evening cooking supper and cleaning it up.

I just pray God will help us to become better partners and teammates every day, not only because it will make our marriage better, but because it will make us better parents to our little girl as well.

Each year for Lent I like either give up or do something extra. This year I want to try something new.

Over a year ago I served at a spiritual retreat called Women's Encounter. It was an amazing experience, but one of the things I loved most was the time we spent in prayer for the women who were attending and other aspects of the weekend. Prayer has been one of the more powerful ways I have experienced God, especially when I am praying not for my own wants and desires, but for the needs of others.

So this year for Lent I want to devote an extra 10 minutes a day praying for other people, but I will need help to do this. I am asking for people to share any prayer requests they might have and at some point during Lent, I will spend at least 10 minutes praying for it/you. I will not share these requests with anyone - I will be the only one who sees them. You can send me a private Facebook message with your requests if you are interested.

I pray this will be a great way for me to grow in my faith during this season, but that more importantly others might benefit from it as well.

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. James 5:16

Since the last blog…

Taylee and I made a trip to visit my little sister and her family. We live in opposite corners of the state, so it’s a long drive, but the company is well worth it. :)

Our daughters are about 6 weeks apart in age, but I am always amazed at how different their personalities are already. Before becoming a mom I had assumed that, to a certain extent, a baby was a baby.

Afton is a lot more expressive than Taylee, and she’ll readily smile at pretty much anyone. Taylee is typically a very content baby, but she can be very somber. Unless you catch her in a really good mood, or if you’re someone she knows very well; you’re going to be hard pressed to get a smile out of her.

Taylee also went on her first ski trip this past weekend. Because of his knees, Grandpa Stewart didn’t ski, so he and Taylee got to hang out while we skied a couple hours in the morning and afternoon.

Skiing was a lot of fun – there was a lot of snow on the mountain so nearly all the runs were open.  I have to take it slow, and it’s definitely not very pretty, but I really enjoy the challenge of going down some of the double diamonds with Taylor. I only wiped out once – we were coming down a spot that wasn’t very even, but you had to go fast in order to make it up the hill on the other side. I almost made it, but dip close to the top of the hill got the better of me. I ended up sliding to the top of the hill on my backside, but as I came to a stop, I looked up at Taylor and said, “I made it!” :)

It's kind of like life in general - it ain't always pretty, but keep going until you make it!

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the week!

Lyndee

Parental Problem Solving

Growing up I was around babies quite a bit - babysitting, cousins, nieces and nephews, and so on. So I kind of figured I would know what it would be like to take care of my own baby.

And while the feeding, diaper changing, bathing are basically the same for most babies, I never realized how much being a parent would be like playing in some sort of weird, never-ending problem solving game where you win by having a more content and happy baby. The loser's prize is a crying baby.

I think this is especially true when you're traveling with an infant. When we drove to my family's for Christmas, I had thawed some milk in case we needed to tide our daughter over for a short period of time in between stops. When Taylee started to stir I got the milk ready to put in the bottle, but it was a little cooler than she would like... so I turned on my heated seat and put the bag of milk there to take off the chill.
And when Taylor and I wanted to grab some lunch and take a quick bathroom break while Taylee was still sleeping we decided that Taylor would drop me off and I would run inside while he went through the drive through. Then, when I was done, I would run out and swap with him that way we still got our food but never had to disturb our daughter while she was sleeping and hopefully we could make better time.

Taylor and I felt pretty accomplished when we reached my mom and dad's after 6 hours without our daughter ever having a crying fit. But she made sure we didn't get too full of ourselves and gave us a nice dose of humility on the way back home a couple days later! ;)

Since my post-baby time management has not progressed enough yet for me to have regular blog posts, here are some things that have happened since my last one...

In October we took Taylee to her first K-State football game. As you can see she was very excited. ;)

Most of my family was able to come visit for Thanksgiving so we had a great time cooking, eating great food and playing games together.

While my family was visiting, we had Taylee baptized. In the Methodist Church, baptizing a baby is basically acknowledging the sacrifice Christ has made for that child. It was a special ceremony, but I look forward most to the day when I pray our daughter will make her own choice to accept Christ as her Savior and make Him Lord over her life.

In December we went to Vegas for the National Finals Rodeo. Taylee was a trooper!  She slept through both flights and handled all the travel amazingly well. 

Admittedly, until you have a baby, you never realize how loud some events are. We were really glad we had some ear protectors for Taylee during the rodeo what with the fireworks at the beginning, and loud music and commentating throughout the event.

This was at our favorite breakfast place in Vegas - Mon Ami Gabi. I would go to Vegas simply to eat here! :)

This Christmas was definitely different from any others we've had so far, but Christmas with a baby sure is a lot of fun! I absolutely love this photo from Christmas morning. :)

Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Philippians 3:7

This recent Scripture really spoke to me.  As I start the new year, I pray God will help me to recognize those things in my life that separate me/keep me from being fully committed to Him, and then I pray He'll give me the strength to make the changes I need to so I can be completely His. I pray we all would be able to help each other in fellowship through these processes as well.

Hope you all are staying warm and safe in this winter weather!

Love,

Lyndee

The Right Occupation

Throughout my life I've dreamed of being a lot of different things.
I've always loved animals, so as a young kid I thought I should be a vet when I grew up.  Then later I wanted to be a nurse like my mom. My first year of college, I spent a lot of time worrying if I was picking the right career path. I decided to switch from pre-nursing to Ag Communications, then I added Ag Econonomics, then I dropped the communications part. Then right before Taylor and I got engaged, I very nearly made the full circle and went back to nursing, but didn't end up doing it.

I changed my mind thinking each new option would bring me more fulfillment with the work involved, making me happier in the long run…but I was mistaken.

I didn't realize the best thing I could ever do is be a mom.  No job could even compare or bring as much happiness into my life as my daughter has.

- My heart has never melted the way it did the first time I saw her smile.
- Nothing has ever brought me such true delight as hearing her coo and jabber in her carseat as we drive down the highway.
- And I can't think of any other job in the world where I would gladly wake up "to work" multiple times in the middle of the night. (Although thankfully, the past few weeks Taylee has limited it to one or two times per night, and I'm not complaining about that!) :)

I hope I can take some of the lessons I've learned since having Taylee and make sure I am applying them to the rest of my life - like remembering how much joy the simplest things like her smile or her coos can bring me. God has blessed my life so much, I know there are things I need to be more thankful and appreciative of, so I want to make sure I see the joy in the simple/everyday parts of life as well.

These last two and a half months have absolutely flown by, and I am amazed at how much Taylee has grown.
I am truly grateful my girl is strong and healthy and growing well, but admittedly it makes me a little sad to see how quickly this stage of life is passing by.
I know it would be completely futile to wish time would slow down, so instead I'm going to pray that by looking to enjoy and appreciate the simplest parts of life, hopefully I can be more present for each moment. In the future I don't want to look back and have regrets about how I spent my time.

Most of all I want to say thanks to my husband - because of his hard work and determination to provide for our family, I am able to stay at home with our daughter and experience all these little moments with her.

On the thought of how I spend my time…I now understand my mom's abilities a little better. I have always marveled at how much my mom can accomplish on any given day. Now I realize that when you have a baby, it's like you develop another gear and a lot better time management. During nap time, you can get a heck of a lot done. :) I still have  a long way to go to be able to match my mom, but I'm getting closer! ;)

A few pictures from the first couple months of Taylee's life…meeting great grandparents, grandparents and spending time with daddy.

Taylee's first combine ride - cutting some dry land corn

As for God, His way is perfect. Psalm 18:30

This was a recent Scripture in my daily devotional, and I appreciated the lesson that went with it. It spoke of different people in the Bible who had made plans, but their plans didn't come to fruition. However, they still submitted themselves to God. Because they were willing to give themselves to God rather than closing themselves off because their plans were denied, He was able to use them for a greater purpose and bring glory to Himself.
I pray I would have faith enough to always accept Your plan above my own, Lord. I submit myself to You. Please use me. Amen.

I hope you all have a great rest of the week!
Lyndee