Pea of Sweetness

Wedding Favors and Supplies

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My husband and I have been married 7 years, but we had a small, private courthouse wedding. At the time it seemed like such a great idea because we could save money and I well, I really needed medical insurance that my job didn’t offer. So, we jumped on it and had our small “wedding.” I often feel like I missed out on the atmosphere of a beautiful wedding despite our attempt to decorate for a small reception. We are still planning to renew our vows and have “the wedding we never had.” The excitement of thinking about it and planning is awesome. I have helped others’ plan their weddings, and it’s just something I really enjoy! We still have a few years until the big date, which we’re planning for our 10th anniversary, but it’s never too early to start looking ahead and getting everything ready!

wedding

photo credit

Saving money is still important to us especially having 3 special needs kids and our own medical needs, which is why we’re already planning so we can maximize our resources. I found some beautiful wedding supplies like the picture above and fell in love with this display! Not only do they match “our colors,” but the prices are great, too! They really have a little bit of everything! They have personalized products, organza ribbon, chair covers, wedding cameras, bubbles and sashes, cake stands, personalized ribbons, guest books, favor bags, centerpieces, and much more. Basically anything you could need! Their shipping prices are extremely reasonable as well! I know we don’t want “just anything” for our vow renewal wedding, so I was glad to find eFavorMart! Besides a great selection their website is easy to navigate! Sometimes shopping for decorations and supplies can be overwhelming, but I don’t feel that way when shopping their site! You can find products in Huge Lots by color and products by category. It’s all nicely laid out for easy shopping!

Visit eFavorMart.com for more information and for great tips, photos, and more connect with them on Twitter and Facebook!

Disclosure: Compensation for this post was provided by eFavorMart via LinkVehicle. Opinions expressed here are my own and may be different than yours. For more information please read my Disclosure Policy.

31 Days to Great Sex Launch Blog Tour and Giveaway (ends 12/27)

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Woah! Did you say s-e-x? Yes! We need to stop thinking of it as a “bad word” and view it as God intended for it to be – an intimate (and important) part of our marriages. If you feel like you need to nurture your marriage, enhance your bond with your spouse, then this is the book for you! I see so often couples struggling because they don’t realize the importance of sex in marriage. It breaks my heart that I’ve seen many women that said they “don’t care.” Well, you SHOULD!

Here are some things author Sheila Wray Gregoire says:

Here’s why I’m passionate about sex: God created sex to unite us on three levels–physical, spiritual, and emotional. When we feel truly intimate on those three levels, our marriages soar. And that’s when we’re able to impact our churches and communities for Him.
But if we’re not connecting in our marriages, we lose out on a great strength that God gave us in this life. And we threaten our families and our children’s future.
The church doesn’t like to talk about sex, and so we leave it to our culture. And our culture has turned it into something perverse and disgusting.
I’m not willing to stand for that anymore. I think the church needs to step up and fight back and start redeeming sex.
And that’s what this ebook does. It takes couples through exercises about improving their communication, their friendship, their outlook on sex, and yes, even the mechanics of sex, so that their marriage can rock!
I’m really proud of this book, and I’m excited to see how God is going to use it.
31 Days to Great Sex

I share her passion!

I truly appreciate Sheila’s passion for sharing this message and am a loyal follower of her blog To Love, Honor, and Vacuum. I also own her ebook “The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex,” which is, obviously, geared toward women. Although I’ve been married for 7 years I still learned a lot from the book – particularly understanding how my husband feels – how God designed him to be! Things haven’t always been easy for us, and we had a particularly rough time after his surgeries for cancer, and then his cancer came back and he had to go through chemotherapy. There were things he was feeling that I didn’t understand, and that book really gave me some “ah ha!” moments! God has been good to honor our Faith and strengthen our marriage through those hard times, and reading “The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex,” and following Sheila’s blog has just helped add to it!
Her new release “31 Days to Great Sex” is geared for couples to read through together. We haven’t had a chance to read all the way through it, but check back because I will be adding a review when we’re finished! I love that there is not only the message of intimacy but the closeness we are sharing reading it together! Something Sheila also stresses often is the importance of friendship in our marriages. This is absolutely true and doing little things together like reading this book will also help build your relationship as friends! Marriage is meant to be fun and enjoyable, and I know you will NOT be disappointed!

For more:

31 Days to Great Sex ebook is available for only $4.99! Purchase your copy of 31 Days to Great Sex
“Likes” Shelia Wray Gregoire’s Books on Facebook
Follow Sheila on Twitter
 

*Giveaway!!!*

About the Giveaway: This giveaway begins on 12/13 at 12:00pm and ends on 12/27 at 11:59pm (times are EST) and is open to US residents ages 18+ Please refer to the full terms and conditions in the Rafflecopter.
The Prize: 2 winners will receive the 31 Days to Great Sex ebook
 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
Disclosure: I was not compensated for this post or giveaway. My opinions are my own and may be different from yours. Pea of Sweetness is not responsible for prize shipment.

7 Years

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You might be able to tell from my lack of personal posts that I’ve been busy! It’s definitely a busy time, and it won’t really let up until September is over! Phew! My mom and grandma are here visiting from Ohio, which has been awesome! We have had so much fun! We even got to celebrate my mom’s birthday yesterday, and B and I chose a Western theme for her party since she’s visiting us here in Texas. We also got to celebrate our 7th anniversary on the 13th! We were so excited to have a night out just the 2 of us for our anniversary! I felt nostalgic and was reminiscing on the last 7 years – from our whirlwind engagement and marriage to having 3 beautiful children and even thinking about how while we had a wonderful anniversary date in 2010 we both knew in the back of our minds that we were “waiting it out” to see if his cancer had returned and that he would probably be starting chemotherapy in just a few short weeks. Which is, indeed, what happened. I feel SO incredibly blessed to be married to such an amazing man – my best friend, a Godly man, a wonderful father, my love. I am blessed that he is still here with us! I was going to type everything from how we met until now – when I say everything I mean a summary. I know I write too much! LOL I think the way our day went on our Anniversary, though, has been a lot like the last 7 years. To be fair, though, I did put together a collage in order from our engagement until now! 🙂

Wedding Anniversary

 So our day Thursday started like any other, but we were really looking forward to having a nice anniversary date. We lack creativity, so we were going to do the whole dinner and a  movie. All 3 kids and myself were a little congested, and I actually got to sleep in a little thanks to my mom and grandma keeping an eye on the kids. I got woken up, though, by our older 2 kids yelling that our youngest was vomiting. Seriously?! I figured it was a fluke  because he does gag easily, which we will be seeing an ENT for soon.

It was not that simple, though. He was really sick. My mom and grandma kept an eye on the older 2, and I spent all day in the little guy’s room taking care of him (and keeping him away from everybody else). It was miserable. HE was miserable. I was miserable. That anniversary date was starting to look like an impossibility. I asked Joey to bring home some Pedialyte on his way home from work because mooselion progressed from just vomiting to having diarrhea as well. Lovely. I thought for sure our night was determined. He wasn’t even able to keep the Pedialyte down. He drank the rest, though, and Joey was about to take over so I could get some rest because I was at exhausted at that point and almost sleeping! Then he just got up like nothing was ever wrong and was perfectly fine after that! He was even bursting with energy! I have NO idea what made him so sick, but it appeared to be over! We gave it some time to be sure, but sure enough, he didn’t get sick again after that! We didn’t have time for our dinner and a movie, but we did have a nice dinner and went to the store by ourselves. It felt weird but refreshing!

I really do think our anniversary can sum up our marriage – starting with hope and excitement to getting overwhelmed by life’s storms and wondering if you’ll ever get out of it, to looking back on everything in retrospect knowing it has all turned out OK and we are so blessed!

The Love Dare Update – Days 5-10

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There is so much more I want to post than just a general update, but our youngest’s Sensory Processing Disorder has been in overdrive, so a general update will have to do for now, but I cannot wait to share what has been on my heart very soon! I’m still working on that Video Blog, too! I know, at this point you’re thinking “I’ll believe it when I see it!” LOL That would be a totally fair thought! So, all I can say is yes, you’ll believe me when you see it! 🙂

Day 5

Love is not rude. This was a little hard for me. It wasn’t hard for me because I have a hard time not being rude, it was hard for me because I had to ask my husband to tell me three things that cause him to become uncomfortable or irritated with me. I’m not very good at asking for constructive criticism. If you remember in my first post about The Love Dare I have Borderline Personality Disorder, so I am very sensitive to criticism (this is something I’m prayerfully working on), so to ask for it was definitely out of my comfort zone! I had to take a few deep breaths and remind myself that no matter the answers my husband is sharing out of love and it’s a chance to improve so as to not become defensive (which is my automatic response). It’s amazing what God can do when you ask for His guidance. I was not only able to listen openly but I also didn’t feel hurt or defensive. This is not only a success as far as The Love Dare goes, but a major success for someone with Borderline Personality Disorder! God is good! 🙂 I was very happy my husband shared because what he shared wasn’t things that were “obvious” to me, but I can definitely see how it could come off as rude and even disrespectful to him, so I am now conscious of these things! Day 5 was a blessing for our whole family!

Day 6

Love is not irritable. Love may not be irritable, but I am! LOL No, that’s what this is all about! To love we need to BE love, and love is not irritable. It’s hard not to be irritable when you have kids fighting and nagging all day, outside stress, and everything else that adds up! A lot of this also stems from priorities! I encourage you to read a couple of my posts about priorities such as Chasing the Wind and On the 7th Day where I discussed priorities and taking a day of rest to devote to God and family. Day 6 mirrored my sentiments exactly! It discussed how the Bible helps us avoid unhealthy stress and let love guide our relationships. What I had written in those posts is what has personally helped ME prioritize this because I did realize prior to this challenge that having certain priorities and not having the day of rest really was causing me to be irritable towards my family. My family (particularly my husband) should be my priority – not the brunt of my irritation! There’s so much more I want to touch on that was on my heart while reading and praying over Day 6 that will surely come in my more detailed posts!

Day 7

Love believes the best. It’s easy to point out all the negatives about our spouse, isn’t it? What about the positives? Have you thought about them today? Actually take the time to think about and thank your spouse for the positives today. It’s easy to do, but it’s also easy NOT to do. Take the time to do this today! It really is a refreshing experience! One thing that really struck a chord with me – the only reason you should even think about the negatives is to know how to pray for your spouse. That’s it. Not to hold it against them. Not to dwell on them. To PRAY for them. Have you prayed for your spouse today? Have you thanked them for something today? I encourage you to do both!

Day 8

Love is not jealous. Jealousy is a tough topic, and definitely not one I can completely cover in this short update. What happens when you allow jealousy to permeate your marriage? It can be VERY harmful. We do it often without even thinking about it, though! He’s spending time with his buddy, and I’m stuck at home with the kids AGAIN! She gets to go shopping, and I have to change diapers. I think these sentiments are definitely more easily recognized in parenthood (and let’s face it – raising kids can be tough and CAN take its toll), but these situations don’t *just* happen in couples with children, though the kids and diapers part may not apply! 😉 Instead of letting jealousy take over – decide to become your spouse’s biggest fan! Let your spouse complete you – not compete with you!

Day 9

Love makes good impressions. Greetings are so important that they’re stressed in the Bible! When we greet others outside the home we often do so with a smile and hello, but how are we greeting our spouse? A look up from the computer with a simple “hi” (*blush* Guilty!), no greeting at all? How about an enthusiastic greeting at the door so they know we appreciate them and are glad to see them? I’ve decided to change my greeting to let my husband know I appreciate him and am happy he is home. Can I challenge you to do the same?

Day 10

Love is unconditional. This day’s lesson is powerful. I encourage you if you haven’t already to invest in The Love Dare – whether your marriage is a little rocky or on solid ground – everyone can benefit from this book. Day 10 touches on the different “types” of love. The least practiced is unconditional love. Friendship love (phileo) and sexual love (eros) are both important and necessary to marriage, but you MUST also have unconditional love (agape). Agape love truly is the “in sickness and in health” love, “for richer or poorer” love, “for better or worse” love. It’s the only kind of love that is true love. Again, this lesson was one that really touched my heart, and I will also be sharing more! A good summary is “love is not determined by the one being loved but rather by the one choosing to love.” CHOOSE to love your spouse unconditionally.
I have been taking many notes, and all those I mentioned that have been on my heart will be shared through additional posts, and I will continue to post the small synopsis updates as well! I appreciate your taking time to join me on this journey and please if you have anything to share feel free to do so in a comment (if you have never commented on my blog there is a password to avoid spammers. You do NOT have to type this password in the box below – simply copy and paste it!) or you may always contact me privately or join our Love Dare support group! Have a blessed week!