ALY ALLEN | THE BLOG

recently i had one of those days where my to-do list consisted of six different super-quick errands. seems simple enough to most people. before kids you could knock them all out in less than an hour and go about your day. but with kids, forget about it. you dread the outing for two days and put it off until you have no more food or toothpaste and your husband is wondering about the dry-cleaning and the alterations. when you have to strap and unstrap three kids into their carseats for six different super-quick errands, it's a whole new kind of monster. it takes longer to get them in and out of the car than the amount of time we actually spend inside the post office, or the dry cleaner, or the bank. multiply that by six and we're all going crazy. truly, there needs to be a drive-through dry cleaner, drive through full-service post office window, drive through banking (not just ATM but actually denominations-other-than-twenty banking), and a drive-up pre-order Target servic...

my to-do list looks like most of yours: laundry [fold & actually put away] groceries pick up living room print orders dance class write? make dinner pick up dry cleaning design? bathtime hang out with husband lots of chores and errands and little tasks, with the occasional is-there-time-to-create? thrown in there. i'm a wife and a mom and a home-keeper-together-er and i have a couple part-time-from-home jobs for income, too. i mean, it's pretty much a crap-shoot whether there will be time to create. and lately i've been discouraged over that. i like to design. i like to write. i like to take in beauty and give out my interpretation of it. i want to write music. i want to practice my non-existent keyboard because the piano still isn't tuned. i want to have a life full of margin and free-time to just do what my brain feels most at-home and my heart feels most at-peace doing. but that's just not reality. i don't think it's reality for any...

i hate to admit it, but i've recently come out of a yucky period in my mothering. i felt entitled and frustrated and defeated most days, and i knew it, but i just couldn't snap out of it and i couldn't figure out what in the world was wrong with me. no amount of resolve or regret would change anything. until i decided to combat it with Truth. i had to sit down and wade through all the muck to determine one basic thing: what lie am i believing? and what is the Truth that will set me free? it's a basic principle i've been learning over the years, but especially through  this book . it's the first question we need to ask ourselves for every stronghold, addiction, or pattern of fear or sin in our lives. all of it stems from a lie that we believe. so for me, in this situation? it was a little toxic cocktail of many lies: •  the lie that life should be easy and smooth.  •  the lie that children should be simple to raise, they should easily follow and obey...

one of my favorite things to do in december is to drive around to see the lights. our neighborhood is huge, and we have some seriously awesome houses. one of them is our next-door neighbor, so we don't have to look very far it we don't want to. but at least five or six times in december i would stick the girls in the car and drive around our neighborhood to spot the best-decorated houses. one particular evening, as we were driving, i asked my three-year old if she remembered what was so special about Christmas. "it's when Jesus came to see all my presents!" that's when you know you're doing a good job, right? yeah, so i gently reminded her that Jesus came, in fact, to wipe away our sins. after a thirty second pause, she wondered out loud: "He came to wipe away your yelling?" straight.to.the.heart. "Because when you yell, that's your sin. and when i don't listen to you, that's my sin." yes, right again. i found...

when she was born, you kept your distance. your little world had been rocked, but you weren't jealous or rough or inconsiderate. just a little bit reserved. maybe a bit indifferent, maybe a bit curious. that's your way. you stand back until you see how you fit in. a lot like me. soon enough you began to help in any way you could. i think it was your strategy for getting positive attention from me, a way to keep our relationship strong, to make my life easy. you think about those things and you could tell that taking care of a newborn was hard. you were like a second little mommy to her. you still are. always looking out for her, always letting me know when she's crying, always comforting her. you are a natural big sister. it's a role you were always meant to fill. i know i expect a lot from you. and you will never know how much i pray for discernment and patience and eyes to see you as the three-year-old little girl that you are . i don't want to put all that re...

you have one more day to be my baby... tomorrow morning we'll wake up, we'll get in the car and we'll drive to the hospital, and you'll become a big sister. technically, you won't be my baby anymore. you'll be my big girl... God has equipped you in so many ways to be a big sister. you are kind and thoughtful and compassionate, always looking after others and making sure they're happy and comfortable. you love to help me around the house, and you love little babies. your family is so important to you. i believe you will be Tessa's favorite and best friend, almost by default, and i hope that each day you choose her to be yours too i pray that you grow to be the kind of girl, teenager, woman that she can look up to. you love to do right, and you love positive reinforcement. i pray i can nurture that desire into a love for goodness and mercy and mostly just Jesus. Tessa will need you. you will identify...

this is a daily occurrence. my shoes are constantly scattered across the house from little feet prancing around in them for hours, magic wand in hand, directing the invisible symphony that i'm certain plays beautifully in her head. someday she will actually fit into my shoes and i'll want to slow down time as she slips out from under my wing and into the real world. i know this is how life is supposed to happen, but it makes my heart hurt a little. i do cherish each milestone, but i know i'll miss this once it's passed. i can already see how she'll always be watching and learning from me. i will show her how to be a woman, a wife, a mother, a friend. i will show her how to love and serve and encourage. she needs so much from me. they're big shoes to fill, but i intend to fill them until she must fill them up herself.  someday she'll dress up and head out the door to her senior prom. and, Lord help us, a long aisle where her ...

well. this post is hard for me to write. because i feel a little bit like a failure, but mostly an imposter . remember when i told you about Babywise , and i even posted a video all about how to get your child to sleep through the night and acted like i was this expert? yeah... well it turns out i'm not. you know how i have a ten month old baby? and, you know how she wakes up once or twice every night? some of you are thinking  well, duh. and i told you so . but here's what i want you to know:  it's really hard for me to admit defeat.  i want to share my heart with you; the deep, dark, ugly, and triumphant parts, and i just want you to hear me . i hope you'll honor that. i almost turned off the comments except that i want to leave them open for anyone that might be struggling like i was. so, do you remember when i wrote about  how i haven’t slept in almost a year  and how i feel like there’s no end in sight. you guys, sleep-deprivation is so...

the night lingers on. each second crawling to the next in what feels like an eternity. a cruel joke, really. another sleepless night, up with the baby as she refuses to sleep anywhere else but in my lap, upright in a rocking chair. exhausted and frustrated, i can't see beyond the sleep-deprivation toward anything worthwhile or meaningful. this will always be it. nothing to contribute to the world, no gifts to share, no lives to change. how can i? without a moment to myself to breathe, think, plan, move mountains? sleep? but then a thought flickers that maybe, just maybe , there's the slightest chance that this is my contribution. these are the mountains moving. for this season, anyway. void of glamour, reward postponed until years later, the epitome of delayed gratification.  this is motherhood in the trenches.  besides, i wonder if maybe there is something, a selfishness, in me that needs to die. and maybe it requires the long and frustrating nights to starve it ou...

i have two sister-in-laws. they each have three kids. and as of last week, all three of their kids are in school from 8-2 at least three times a week. are you serious? i'm seeing the same sort of thing on instagram as my mama friends have all this new time by themselves. sure, they're working from the house or busy with other important things, but they still get to be alone for a good stretch of time each day. can you imagine? i found myself a little bit jealous, to be honest. not in a terribly ungrateful way, but just imagining if i had that much time to concentrate on work, blogging, designing, how much i'd get accomplished. the other day as i drove home from preschool with my sweet girl, i really pondered it. i have never been one to wish ahead to the next season. sure, in a moment of frustration i'll do it, but for the most part, i try to embrace and love the season that i'm in. even the hard ones, even the painful ones. to really experience and embrace lif...

this gal is 7 months old... seven months. i thought it was just february last week? where does the time go? anyway, my husband's family has a fun tradition that his grandparents started, where they always celebrate the babies' 6-month birthdays with an ice cream party :) now, i'm normally a more health-conscious mom, i guess you could say. with my first daughter it was all i could do not to burst inside when she dug into that mountain of sugar. basically, in my mind, that much sugar = poison. luckily, for my own sanity's sake, i've lightened up a lot .  so little Tessa dug into her ice cream sundae this a couple weeks ago  [it was a few weeks after her actual 6-month birthday but she'll never know the difference]. i think it's safe to say she liked it. she was screaming at me between bites. i couldn't shovel it in fast enough: and she got to open some cute little gifts and ride on the quads with daddy and now i'...

i never thought i'd be a mom of girls, to be honest with you...  for some reason, i just pictured myself having all boys.  longing and wishing for that girl? absolutely .  but just never actually having one.  well i was wrong. obviously. and i'm so glad... i'm sure boys would be wonderful,  but that would mean i wouldn't have these two beauties: melissa always sends me the photos just a few hours after she takes them.  honestly, i just looked through them and stared. and then cried.  and then just could not believe these were my babies.  sometimes it's hard, during the daily grind and busy-ness of life to really see what we've been given.  photos like this, that are so gorgeous you can't look away, really put it all into perspective.  this is where i want to be. always. i don't love jumping into the shoots, but i do it anyway. because melissa always convinces me to, and because i know i'll beat my...

i've written about it before , and so have many other bloggers, but i sort of feel like it should be re-addressed every so often just to reassure people: i don't do it all. notevenclose . a darling blog-friend commented the other day on instagram how i'm her hero. i laughed out loud when i read it, and some of you who know me in real life are laughing right now too. because i know myself and i am no one to aspire to, as far as having it all together or being a supermom or being some amazing example of productivity or wonderfulness. i think i should do a "day in the life" post soon, just so you can see how crazy life is over here. not organized, not really planned out, not glamorous by any means. because here's what i don't ever want. i don't ever want anyone to read this blog or read my tweets or look at my photos on instagram or look through my shop and feel less-than or intimidated or envious or not good enough in some particular area ....

so i thought i'd share a few things i learned during my year long potty training experience. i say year-long because i tried last July and it was just not working. ever since then, while we weren't actively potty-training, i kept talking with her about how she really needs to start going in the potty soon and how big girls don't wear diapers and how she can go to preschool if she goes in the potty, etc. but i never got up the courage to really buckle down and try again. her third birthday seemed like the perfect milestone, benchmark, whatever you want to call it. besides, for the past few months she'd been telling me that she'd start going in the potty in may, when she turned three. so i held her to it: her third birthday came, and we started going in the potty the next day. and as i shared with you monday , it totally stuck! i can say that because we're a week later and she goes in the potty every single time , let's me know she has to g...

oh hey... thought i'd pop in to let you know that this darling girl is POTTY TRAINED!?! like, 100% totally and completely potty trained. i have found myself at least 30 times saying "thank You Lord" & "praise You Jesus" in complete awe. meaning, i have no idea how it happened... it just did. all Him, not me. we went from this [the very first day] where she's crying for a diaper!?! to loving her big-girl status.  undies-wearing, potty-going, prize-getting is very fun :) she even wore undies to her birthday party. we brought her little potty in the car  [still hasn't warmed up to the big potty, at home or in public, but that will come] best part is, i figured we'd do daytime and nighttime all at once and it totally worked! 4 out of 5 nights have been completely dry. to say i am relieved and thankful and excited is a HUGE understatement. [read my last experience with trying to potty train when she wa...

today i had one of those crazy shifts in perspective. do you know what i'm talking about? all of a sudden i'm standing there cutting up the pork shoulder to stick in the crock pot and it hits me: i am so blessed to be doing this. all of this. this morning i woke up like any other. you know, an eleven week old baby, crying and hungry. we went downstairs and i made some fresh juice for Reese and myself.  we had orange-pineapple-apple. seriously delicious and refreshing and perfect.  it struck me how much joy i actually get from taking a few pieces of fruit and juicing them up into something yummy and nutritious. something that Reese begs me for every day.  i get joy from that.  i think it's two-fold: that i even have access to nutritious food for my family,  and also that i don't mind doing the work of cutting and peeling and juicing for what would seem like little return. for me, it's a huge return-- nutrition.  and i finally r...