Living life in the moment: 2013

In life God has given us so much freedom and I usually find that for me it is this freedom that is as much as a great gift as it is overwhelming. My confession is that sometimes I just want people to tell me what to do, and exactly how to do it. This way I don't have to take any responsibility for being wrong. I have dealt with this in my music performance. If I am on stage and asked to improvise a solo, on one hand I think wow that sounds so fun and what an honor to be able to create a solo, but on the other hand I say, no please just tell me what to play. After awhile I started to recognize this pattern in my life and realized that God doesn't want me to live in fear of making a mistake. I can teach it to my kids all day long, but until I step out and live in this freedom and accept the grace to live each experience fully. To step out into the exciting places where I may not know what is to come but I am growing as I take each step I am heading towards the dreams that are exciting to me and I am setting an example and giving others permission to do the same. As I look at the gift of freedom, I see endless possibilities. I see God's infinite creativity and I see grace. We are given this freedom because it helps us become who we are. We don't have to fit into any certain mold or do anything in the same manner as another person. As long as God is our source, we are walking with His righteousness and His grace covers us. As we step out we are stepping out with the dreams He has given us and He is growing our character to be more Christ like. He is always guiding our ways so that we become better each day and we are walking in the direction of our dreams. One of my favorite quotes is by Henry David Thoreau, "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." What an exciting way to life! Today I am fully embracing the freedom that God has given me and asking Him what is my next step in the journey?

Once again, it has been awhile since I have blogged. I love blogging because it is something that I can have to record sections of my life and it is also an outlet for me to discuss things that have been going on in life. I may not always set aside time consistently to blog but when it gets important to me, I will make the time. Time is one of those things in life that I treasure. It is more valuable than anything else since I am really a quality time girl. I can't think of anything greater than one on one time with a friend or family member!

Life as a mom is busy and I am constantly seeking balance for myself and my family. There is always that laundry pile that never seems to go away, and then there are the things I enjoy doing. Like playing with the kids, or cooking, exercising or performing or teaching music. Not to mention I sometimes like to enjoy a clean house:) Me as the planner that I can be sometimes, I'll try to plan out a schedule to balance things out, but I know life does not always go as planned. I still believe in planning and taking personal responsibility for each choice in my life, but I don't allow myself to get frustrated if my day doesn't go exactly as planned. A scripture that will always feed me is Proverbs 3:5 "Trust in the Lord with ALL of you heart and lean not on your own understanding. In ALL your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." What a great word! It is so simple, yet profound and it has the ability to speak to me no matter what season or journey I am walking through in my life! Me being the controller that I am, I have this tendency to trust in my own works and if I did enough good things throughout my day. While doing good things in my day is a good thing, it CANNOT be my source of trust and faith for how my life will develop. As I daily walk through making a greater effort to cast my cares on God and receive His joy and peace and rest because I CAN trust Him to do what I cannot do. Because my works in any given day, will NEVER be perfect, but His works ALWAYS were perfect and ALWAYS will be. I would much rather trust in HIM although it is much easier if I do it myself (just kidding, haha!!) I think it is actually my lack of faith that wants to do it myself, so I need to resist doing anything that is separate from what I have prayed because with God things just work, on your own things might work but there is a lot more toil involved. I am writing all of this to encourage myself that I can always grow to trust God more and I can always learn to only put works into things that I have prayed through first.

Now onto some memories I wanted to write about in the Burdick household these past months. We had a great Christmas. I feel as if my kids are just growing up way too fast now. I have one turning two this next week and the other turning four in a month. I still feel as if my youngest is a newborn, and still probably treat him like it some days. Christmas was filled with Santa visits, Zoo lights, baking, and Abbie had her first Dance recital. I took three weeks off from teaching so I did have a lot of time with the kids and it went by super quick! Timmy got a lot of little people toys, legos and cars while Abbie got a Bike, a few Lollaloopsi dolls, and a scooter. She spent many a day after Christmas playing with Timmy's cars though. She has a lot of fun playing with her brother and has a little tomboy side to her. The bike hasn't been her favorite thing, we are still working through getting her confidence up while she rides but I know it will happen eventually. Timmy is excited about his birthday coming up and he asked for a "Choo-Choo" birthday so we are doing Thomas again. He isn't talking a ton but has been using a few new words. He will tell you he is turning 2 with his words and his finger numbers and he also knows the number 3. His favorite things now are still Woof woofs and cars and also his toy boots from Dora which He asks for multiple times a day. He is also in this phase where he has a new attachment to Daddy and we have to call him and have him say night night to Daddy on the phone before his nap. Abbie has started taking violin lesson with Auntie Amber and I have been setting aside some fun time to encourage playing and sometimes I'll play with her. Timmy has asked about it but seems to understand he has to wait until he is older although I do feel like he will be a very musical child. Abbie is enjoying it and many times has said that the violin is her favorite part of the day but she is still very honest about things being hard and her not wanting to do the hard things. Each day we cannot tackle the world, but we do make progress:) I am very much thankful in this season to have the amount of time I do with my kids as I can see how fast it goes. Here are some pictures from our last few months: