The Talbert Report

#8 - Make homemade cream of chicken soup

2012-01-20T10:43:00.003-05:00

I never seem to have "cream of..." soup on hand when I need it, although I consider it to be a pantry staple. So last night when I needed it for a recipe and didn't have it, I figured it was easier just to make it myself then to run out to the store. Turns out it really is that easy.

The Canary List

2012-01-15T22:06:00.002-05:00

I recently reviewed "The Canary List" by Sigmund Brouwer. I was interested to read it because I love Christian thriller books which is what I thought this would be.

Instead, it was a confusing maze of demon-possession, the Catholic church, and a conspiracy that made absolutely no sense whatsoever. After reading the book I am still not completely sure about what I just read. I don't feel that it came together in the end at all and I think I just wasted three days of my life reading this book.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.

Miracles Are For Real

2012-01-15T21:31:00.002-05:00

I recently reviewed "Miracles are for Real" by James Garlow and Keith Wall. I didn't really know what to expect from this book but I actually really enjoyed it. Honestly, the part I loved most about the book was the "modern" miracles that were told in this book. Children who died and came back, people who have miraculously been healed with no medical explanation, and other stories like that intrigued me and just made me really excited to be a part of the Christian faith and have an incredible, awesome God in charge.

But the stories were just one great part of this book. The other part is the fact that the authors were able to really explain the background of miracles, and a lot of scripture that had to do with miracles. One thing I really liked is they talked about how people overuse the word "miracle". But there are really several different types of answered prayer, which they call "simple answered prayer", "complex answered prayer", "the coincidence", and the "against all odds". I love the way they laid all of these out into categories.

This was a very well-written book and really easy to read. It talks about the faith aspect of miracles, the act of miracles, and yet it never seems pushy or with an "agenda". I loved this book and would highly recommend it to anyone.

I received this book for free from Bethany House Publishing Group for this review. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.

Christmas Eve and Day

2012-01-10T12:44:00.007-05:00

We spend Christmas Eve with Stephen's family, exchanging gifts and doing Chinese gift exchange, eating tons of food and singing Christmas carols until our voices (or children) give out. We spent Christmas Day with my family, exchanging gifts and eating tons of food as well! Post-Christmas we go to Georgia to see the rest of Stephen's family, but that will be a separate blog. Here are the pictures from Christmas Eve:

And here are the pictures from Christmas Day at Granny's house:

And here are the pictures from our house Christmas morning (after about five pictures my camera battery died, so all the other pictures are on the video camera. I will eventually upload them!)

Christmas Lights

2012-01-09T12:28:00.000-05:00

Some people down the road from us have an insane collection of Christmas lights that go up right after Thanksgiving. Every year since 2008 we've gone walking in their yard to look at these lights. Last year Brianna enjoyed it, but this year I was afraid we wouldn't be able to reign her in she was so excited. Also, they even had Santa Claus, although Brianna wasn't too impressed, not really "getting" the whole Santa thing. Actually it really confused her because he handed out candy and she thought we were trick-or-treating. Go figure.

Life Update Via Pictures

2012-01-08T13:20:00.006-05:00

Brianna puts on her Thanksgiving hat and forces Hunter to love her:

She calls these her "funny glasses":

She called me into the kitchen one day to show me how she figured out how to do handprints on her Aquadoodle:

Which quickly turned into footprints:

And actually, then we found other things we could make "prints" out of!! (No pictures of that)

Three of the cutest kids you'll ever see:

The universal chore that kids love - washing windows:

You mean we're supposed to be brushing her teeth??

It's hard having an older sister who knows where Mommy's mascara is:

Thanksgiving Program 2011

2012-01-07T10:52:00.000-05:00

In November Brianna had her first ever Thanksgiving Program at school! She was totally edible she was so cute. I designated Stephen to take pictures while I recorded the whole play on our camcorder. The lighting in the room wasn't great so even though he did an awesome job at taking pictures, they are hard to see. If you are really interested in seeing a spectacularly cute 2-year old, you can click on the individual pictures to see them better.

Stephen has promised to teach me how to upload the video onto my computer from the camcorder. I cannot believe after three years with the camcorder I still don't know how to do that. And also, I'm not sure they're still even called camcorder. That sounds very '90's.

Fortunately, Dad did take some videos and has already posted them. But the recording I have is the entire 9-minute program, and boy is it cute!!!!

Anyway, here are the pictures!

Worley's Cave 2011

2012-01-06T09:11:00.000-05:00

I started this post back in August 2011 and never got past the uploading of pictures.

I went on a caving/whitewater rafting trip over the summer while Stephen was gone. My parents and his mom graciously watched the kids so I could go on this expedition with the youth group at church. The past two summers I had been pregnant and missed out on rafting and Carowinds.

We went through these caves not really knowing what to expect. Little did we know we would be doing this:

("Devil's Staircase")

and this:

and this:

Or this: (walking about a mile in 40-degree water up to our hips!)

And I didn't know I'd come home with these:

This is the cave we explored. The picture of the bruises doesn't show the extent of my battle wounds. I have tons of pictures but none turned out very well. My mother-in-law was quite taken aback when she saw my battered body!

I wish I knew the statistics for this cave. We had to crawl on our stomachs for a while, with our heads turned because if you kept your head straight you would get stuck with your helmet. We were in there for about four hours. We went through holes that I absolutely did not believe I would fit through.

That picture kind of shows how crazy we got. Our clothes were basically ruined (my jeans and sweatshirt are still discolored even though I've washed them several times!) but MAN did we have fun. It certainly made me feel like I accomplished something. I did stuff in the cave I never thought I could do.

Local Business: Toy Store

2012-01-05T19:44:00.002-05:00

I like to talk about local businesses if I am really impressed with them (some I have spoken about in the past are Classy Paci Boutique, Spirit in the Sky Massage, and local farmers). Before Christmas we attended a birthday party for a 4-year old friend of ours. This girl has everything and I knew that the usual just wouldn't cut it for her. I wanted to get her something original that I didn't have to worry about whether or not she already had it.

I walked into The Little Toy Shop in Southern Pines and I felt transported. I seriously want one of everything in this store! They had gizmos and toys and games that you just can't find at Walmart or any other generic stores. And even better? I love supporting a local business. :)

The place was absolutely overrun with customers - you can tell this is a popular business. But the man behind the counter was patient and even personally wrapped several presents. I was extremely impressed with the quality of the products, the uniqueness of the products, and the owners.

I highly recommend that you check out this store. I can't believe I have never walked in this store before.

The Little Toy Shop
230 SW Broad Street
Southern Pines, 28387
(910) 692-2522

#95 - Find A Way That Works For Me...

2012-01-05T13:06:00.001-05:00

#95 on my 101 in 1001 list - Find a way that works for me to keep up with chores, appointments, etc.

Two kids, one spouse, running the food pantry at church, teaching youth group, doing part-time work mystery shopping for three companies, and finding any other money-making opportunities to make up for my lack of a job outside of the home doesn't leave a lot of free time.

Include household chores, spending quality time with my kids and spouse (together and separately), making sure I spend quality time reading my Bible and praying, taking extra time to make things myself so I don't have to buy them, couponing so that I don't have to pay full-price for stuff, and blogging on three blogs, and free time has just evaporated into a poof!

When Stephen deployed last May, I decided to take the time to figure out how to keep up with all my chores and all my appointments without getting confused and without feeling stressed. I scoured the Internet looking for something that would help me. Most of the time when I found something that worked for someone else, it didn't fit my lifestyle. But eventually, I found something. And then it worked for six months. And then it continued to work. Suffice it to say, I love this schedule. I don't feel stressed about the household unless something else takes up more time than usual. For example, when I do the Angel Tree, I usually am out at the church around 30+ hours a week for three weeks, not to mention making sure my personal shopping is done and everything. But those hours that I'm out at the church instead of at home tend to throw a wrench in my perfect cleaning schedule. Fortunately, I have an understanding husband. :) Sickness is another wrench, vacation is, and having family in town. Sickness is the only "wrench" that I dislike - all other reasons are more important to me than having a clean house!!

So I am sharing this with you. I hope that it helps you. I hope that if it doesn't help you, you can tweak it to make your life easier.

I even figured out how to make it a Google Document... I think. Hopefully this link will take you to my Excel Spreadsheet and maybe you can edit it and print it out for yourself? I'm not sure - I've never used Google Documents. I accept advice. :)

If you enlarge that picture you can see my spreadsheet for October as an example. You'll also see there are many instances where I didn't get my chore done - obviously there are going to be plenty of "it's just been one of those days" days!

Daily chores:
First I have daily chores. Every day my goal is to exercise, have no dishes in the dishwasher that are clean or dirty in the sink, do one load of laundry from washing to drying to folded and put away, sweep the kitchen and dining room, clip and file 25 coupons (so I don't fall behind), and spend time on my devotions. I do make the beds every day but I didn't put it on the spreadsheet because it's just a habit.

I read two great posts on one of my favorite blogs that helped me decide what chores I wanted to do every day. Here is her opinion of three chores to do every morning and here are her three chores to do every night. I don't necessarily agree with these chores but it may help you.

Weekly chores:
Every week, at some point, I have the goals to clean the bathrooms, mop the floors, clean out the refrigerator, dust all rooms, clean the windows, clean my car out completely, change the sheets on all the beds, change the towels in all the bathrooms, clean the microwave thoroughly, and sweep out the garage.

I usually change the sheets on Mondays just because it's the beginning of the week and I like a fresh start. Same thing with changing the towels on Sundays. Other than that, I might dust on a Tuesday this week and on Friday next week. I love not feeling like I have to dust on Wednesday or I have to mop on Friday. The schedule is flexible.

Every other day chores:
Every other day I vacuum and make sure the counters are decluttered and sanitized. Obviously these chores get done more often if necessary, like all the other chores.

When Stephen came home from deployment I realized this schedule worked well while he wasn't here, but when I added in quality time with him, I had less time to spend on household chores. I asked him to take over the chores of vacuuming, sweeping the garage, and doing dishes. Of course he was perfectly willing to do it - we'd pretty much always split chores, but primarily because I just couldn't keep up with it all. Now I was learning how to keep up with enough that he can come home from work and relax and just hang out with us rather than worry about the house.

Let me know if you attempt this and it makes your life easier. That's my hope for you! And if not, maybe it will at least give you some ideas. Some of you probably have kids who can do these chores as well. I know Brianna has helped with unloading the dishwasher, laundry, and cleaning the windows, but there's just not a lot that a 2-year old can reach! Or that I trust her to do just yet!!

Good luck!

#77 - Get Rid of 365 Material Items

2012-01-04T09:39:00.001-05:00

I'm so tired of all this stuff we have accumulated (the blame is shared between Stephen and I, although for some reason we have a lot MORE stuff since having two kids!) so when I made my 101 in 1001 goals I wanted to get rid of 365 items.

So far I've donated/sold/trashed 940 items in just over one year.

That doesn't count anything that wasn't already in this house (i.e. if I bought a sweater and then donated it, I didn't count it towards the number).

175 of those items were books. Whoa.

I would keep counting these items but I'm getting really tired of having to pay attention to writing down everything I get rid of. I would say we're doing pretty good with getting rid of things - the real question is, are we taking in less than we are giving away or are we still just accumulating more stuff??? I don't know the answer to that. I do know that on vacation I bought four long-sleeve shirts which I desperately needed, and I came home and got rid of eleven shirts I knew I would never wear again. I guess as long as we don't hang on to the stuff that we don't need, and buy the stuff we do need, it should always balance out.

Go here to read a great post on clutter that I put up on the blog back in May.

It Costs Nothing to be Polite

2012-01-03T10:03:00.000-05:00

This is a great post from a blog that I love to read. It is titled "It Costs Nothing To Be Polite". Quick read and very good!

http://www.halleethehomemaker.com/2011/05/it-costs-nothing-to-be-polite

100 Books in 2011

2012-01-02T18:34:00.003-05:00

In 2009, I pledged to read 100 books in 2010. I did it again in 2011 just for the fun of it. Last year I read 107 books and this year I read 109.

"Miracles Are For Real" by Garlow and Wall (109)
"2 Die 4" by Ryan Dobson
"Promise Me" by Harlan Coben
"The Wedding Garden" by Linda Goodnight
"House of Secrets" by Tracie Peterson
"The Crossing" by Serita Jakes
"Death of an Addict" by M.C. Beaton
"Insomnia" by Stephen King
"Everything's Eventual" by Stephen King
"Sometimes I Wake Up Grumpy And Sometimes I Let Him Sleep" by Karen Linamen (100)
"Bitter Harvest" by Ann Rule
"Found: God's Will" by John MacArthur
"Laughter From Heaven" by Barbara Johnson
"The Quest for Character" by John MacArthur
"Black Butterflies" by John Shirley
"A Good and Perfect Gift" by Amy Julia Becker
"Finding Home" by Melanie Rose
"Dreamcatcher" by Stephen King
"The Dead Zone" by Stephen King
"Saved Without a Doubt" by John MacArthur
"The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven" by Kevin Malarkey
"A Thousand Acres" by Jane Smiley
"Becoming a Chief Home Officer" by Allie Pleiter
"Mothers and Daughters" by Deborah Bedford and Linda Goodnight
"Humor Me, I'm Your Mother!" by Barbara Johnson
"Never the Bride" by Cheryl McKay
"Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World" by Joanna Weaver
"The Floatplane Notebooks" by Clyde Edgerton
"The Me I Want to Be" by John Ortberg
"Where Trouble Sleeps" by Clyde Edgerton
"From a Buick 8" by Stephen King
"Homecoming Blessings" by Merrillee Whren
"Redeye" by Clyde Edgerton
"Night Shift" by Stephen King
"Love Beyond Reason" by John Ortberg
"The Innocent" by Harlan Coben
"The Telling" by Beverly Lewis
"The Missing" by Beverly Lewis
"The Secret" by Beverly Lewis
"Deep Lie" by Stuart Woods
"Another Dawn" by Kathryn Cushman
"A Tale of Two Sons" by John MacArthur
"Worst Fears Realized" by Stuart Woods
"Living Free in Christ" by Neil Anderson
"The Poet" by Michael Connelly
"The Soldier's Holiday Vow" by Jillian Hart
"Lone Star Blessings" by Bonnie Winn
"Secure Daughters, Confident Sons" by Glenn Stanton
"Loving Grace" by Cynthia Rutledge
"All Good Gifts" by Gail Gaymer Martin
"Blood Work" by Michael Connelly
"His Saving Grace" by Lyn Cote
"God Will Make a Way" by Henry Cloud and John Townsend
"The Dragon's Triangle"/"The Bermuda Triangle" by Charles Berlitz
"2nd Chance" by James Patterson
"Journey to Forever" by Carol Steward
"3rd Degree" by James Patterson
"Roses are Red" by James Patterson
"Jingle Bell Babies" by Kathryn Springer
"Stick a Geranium in Your Hat and Be Happy" by Barbara Johnson
"Fireproof Your Life" by Michael Catt
"Sugarplum Dead" by Carolyn Hart
"Close to Home" by Carolyne Aarsen
"Breathing Lessons" by Anne Tyler
"Joni Eareckson Tada" by Kathleen White
"Twelve Ordinary Men" by John MacArthur
"Katie's Redemption" by Patricia Davids
"Black Friday" by James Patterson
"His Christmas Bride" by Dana Corbit
"For One More Day" by Mitch Albom
"Sworn to Silence" by Linda Castillo
"Rumspringa" by Tom Shachtman
"Family Treasures" by Kathryn Springer
"Refiner's Fire" by Sylvia Bambola
"Santa Fe Dead" by Stuart Woods
"Heart of Stone" by Lenora Worth
"Heaven is for Real" by Todd Burpo
"The Convenient Groom" by Denise Hunter
"Lazarus Awakening" by Joanna Weaver
"Twice Upon a Time" by Lois Richer
"First Mates" by Cecelia Dowdy
"Brazen Virtue" by Nora Roberts
"The Sky is Falling" by Sidney Sheldon
"Operating Instructions" by Anne Lamott
"Death Dance" by Linda Fairstein
"DIRT" by Stuart Woods
"The Search" by Suzanne Woods Fisher
"The Waiting" by Suzanne Woods Fisher
"The Choice" by Suzanne Woods Fisher
"If It Bleeds" by Bonnie Hearn Hill
"BoneMan's Daughters" by Ted Dekker
"In Constant Prayer" by Robert Benson
"Imagination Station: Voyage With the Vikings" by Hering and McCusker
"Life, In Spite of Me" by Kristen Jane Anderson
"God Gave Us the World" by Bergen and Bryant
"Grass Roots" by Stuart Woods
"The God of the Second Chance" by Greg Laurie
"Santa Fe Rules" by Stuart Woods
"Vanish" by Tom Pawlik
"The Lucky One" by Nicholas Sparks
"The Prince of Beverly Hills" by Stuart Woods
"Dakota December" by Lauraine Snelling
"The Quickie" by James Patterson
"Tandem" by Tracey Bateman
"Blessed are the Merciful" by Al and Joanna Lacy
"Secrets" by Kristen Heitzmann
"A Rush of Wings" by Kristen Heitzmann
"Tuesdays With Morrie" by Mitch Albom
"The Still of Night" by Kristen Heitzmann

Favorite authors of 2011: Harlen Coben (who was my favorite new author last year), James Patterson, Stuart Woods

Favorite new author read: John MacArthur

Favorite "inspirational" book: "Becoming a Chief Home Officer" by Allie Pleiter

Authors read simply so I could get their books out of my house for good: Clyde Edgerton, Stephen King

What good reads did you have in 2011??

Pictures

2011-12-31T22:20:00.007-05:00

Cheesin' big time for the camera in her new nightgown from Granny!!

"Got my bear... life is good!"

"Got TWO bears... life is better!"

Kaleb is unsuccessful in his attempt to roll over:

"Hey Kaleb, do you need some help, buddy?"

"Please... I'm begging you... help me roll over!"

"Sorry, it's much more urgent that I give this baby doll her pacifier."

Picture of Kaleb taken from Brianna's viewpoint:

Brianna helps Hunter open his birthday and Halloween presents from Joy (I know, I know, these have been on my camera forever!!)

Uh... how did I end up here??

Three Cups

2011-12-30T15:32:00.001-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I won a book giveaway at the blog of Kingdom First Mom, which is an awesome blog and I highly recommend you check her out!

The book is called Three Cups and I really want to recommend it to you. It is a story about a child who is given three cups for his fifth birthday. His parents explain that they feel it is time for him to receive an allowance, but every time he gets an allowance, some will go into a cup for savings, a cup for spending, and a cup for giving. It explains how the older he gets he is able to keep putting money into each of these cups. Eventually he opens a small bank account with his savings, he saves enough money in his "spending" cup to buy a baseball glove he wants, and eventually with his giving cup he saves enough money to buy eight cans of food for the needy, and helps deliver those cans to those in need.

I loved this book because it's a children's book so it was short, but it's the exact message I want to give to our kids. I feel like my parents always instilled this in us (unfortunately I went a little overboard on the "spending" part during part of my adult life!!) and it's something I really want to talk about with our kids.

So if you see this book around, please know that I highly recommend it for those with young children!

Brianna is Thankful

2011-12-28T15:06:00.002-05:00

I know this isn't the best picture ever, but my scanner isn't big enough to do the whole thing. For Thanksgiving, Brianna's class made these thankfulness wreaths (I'm pretty sure thankfulness isn't a word... stick with me) and I wanted to share hers because I thought it was really precious!

Family
They put on their "family" section who in their families they are thankful for. I am grateful that Brianna put all of us on there - Mom, Dad, and Hunter!!

Friends
In the "friends" category she put Rileigh, Bryce, Lucas, and Martha Anne - four of her very best friends at preschool. But she also put "Caleb". Considering there is no Caleb at her preschool that I know of, I am thinking this is her newest cousin, Kaleb. This was made right around the first time we were meeting him so I'm thinking that stuck in her brain!

Jesus
In the "Jesus" category she put that she is thankful for chapel. They do chapel on Fridays at school and she loves it. She especially loves taking her tithe to give!

Miscellaneous
They were allowed to put anything else they are thankful for. Of course Brianna put dancing. Shocking.

Love this - it will make for a great memory!

Sharp Dressed Man

2011-12-27T19:31:00.002-05:00

Susan, a coworker of mine, gave us this adorable suit for Hunter. Needless to say I've been putting him in it every chance I get before he outgrows it!!

The first day he wore it I wanted to take pictures for her to see him wearing it and I took about 30 pictures before I finally got a good one. But I got some cute outtakes anyway!

Meanwhile, Bri was hard at work on her computer.

New Cousin Kaleb!

2011-12-26T12:10:00.004-05:00

In August we got a new baby cousin!! (Or nephew, depending on who you are!) We didn't get to meet him for two long months because he was born with gastroschisis and was in the hospital for a long time after being born. When we finally did get to meet him, Hunter was a little more reserved ("Uh oh, is this my replacement??") and Brianna was in full-force Mama mode!

In this first video, Brianna is playing with Kaleb by blowing raspberries. He was laughing but I didn't catch it on video this time around.

In this video, Brianna reads "Sleeping Beauty" to Kaleb. (23 seconds is "Cinderella" and 48 seconds is "a big dragon"; other than that, you're on your own translating!!)

House of Secrets Review

2011-12-25T11:23:00.002-05:00

I wanted to review "House of Secrets" by Tracie Peterson because I happen to be a big fan of Tracie Peterson. I've read a dozen or so of her books and she is just a really great writer. So I have to say I was extremely disappointed in this book. I felt like the characters were way over-emotional and they drew out situations way too long. For example, the characters in the very beginning of the book wanted to confront their father about a situation, but they fought and hemmed and hawed about it for too many chapters in my opinion. When they finally did confront him they wouldn't even listen to him.

A major part of this book was about the disease schizophrenia. Many parts of the book read like a scientific encyclopedia on schizophrenia, and it made me wonder if this was simply a topic the author wanted to research, and then tried to tie together a fiction story around it.

It is an easy read, but the characters are not very likable and about halfway through the book I considered simply putting it aside and pretending I had finished it. I made my way to the end but I'm just glad I didn't spend a lot of time on this book.

I received this book for free from Bethany House Publishing Group for this review. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-25T06:32:00.000-05:00

2011 marks the first year we have done Santa. Last year we bought Brianna a slide and two books but she knew they were from us. This year we introduced Santa, so we actually got to set out Santa stuff for the kids as well as the goodies from us.

Each child gets a stuffed animal (got these at yard sales over the summer), their own coloring book (from coalition, never been used), two books (from coalition) and stocking stuffers made up with goodies from Michaels back in November - all things ranging from $0.20 to $0.80 each, plus some toys bought for $0.25 last December from Target's after-Christmas sales. They are getting a Sit N Spin ($2.00 at a yard sale this summer) and a chalkboard easel ($8.00 from a thrift store this summer). Brianna is also getting a baby swing for her dolls ($5.00 after Christmas last year) and some Maggie Leigh magnetic dress-up dolls (by Melissa and Doug, retail for almost $14 but I paid $1.00 at the coalition; never opened!)

Those are their Santa presents. We did pay full price for a train set for Hunter from us and a kid's digital camera for Brianna. Although now that I think about it I paid for the train set with a gift card!

We spent less than $50 between the two of them and it looks like the amount they are getting is very small. But I know they're going to love everything they're getting, so that makes me happy. I want our kids to know that Christmas is not all about the stuff. I love shopping for them and I love watching them open presents that I've gotten for them, but I never want Christmas to be something that stresses me out. People always roll their eyes at me and tell me that as the kids get older, the presents get bigger, and soon enough it will begin to be a lot more expensive and more stressful. I guess I just have high hopes for our future, that we won't go into debt over Christmas (like a lot of families I know), and that we can keep a perspective about Christmas, knowing why we celebrate, and that as long as our focus is on the birth of Jesus and being with family, what else could we really want? I know that sounds pretty cheesy and probably naive to some of you but honestly, wouldn't that make your Christmas a whole lot more pleasant to celebrate?

Merry Christmas, and please, don't forget to thank God this year for what He's given you. Without God, we'd be nothing and I'm so grateful for all His blessings!

Gracie's Birthday Party

2011-12-24T10:08:00.010-05:00

Last Tuesday, Brianna had her first birthday party for a friend that was actually out somewhere and not just at someone's house. We went to Boomer's in Sanford which is a huge bouncy slide place. She was a little intimidated at first, but as you'll see from these pictures she fell in love after her first slide!

Gracie, the birthday girl, with her "Tangled" hair!

Warming up in the bouncy house:

At the top of her first slide:

As soon as she got to the bottom she said, "I wanna do it again!!!"

See her sweaty head? She wouldn't get off the slides to eat pizza or cake or to watch Gracie open her presents. 2 1/2 hours we were on those slides!!

We had a BLAST. Seeing how much she loved it made me realize how old she is getting! We've never taken her anywhere like this so I had an absolute blast watching her face. She was such a daredevil, sliding down face first after she saw the older kids doing it. Thanks Gracie, we had such a great time!!

The Crossing Review

2011-12-23T15:56:00.004-05:00

I really wanted to read "The Crossing" by Serita Jakes because I love thriller novels and I'm always looking for new authors to read.

There were things about this book that I really liked, but I think there were more things I didn't particularly like. The story itself was interesting but there were too many things that were unbelievable. A cop who uses physical power to overcome those who are weaker than him, but never gets punished for it. A lawyer who opens a 10-year-old closed case with no new evidence, but never gets questioned for it. A teacher-student relationship that goes way beyond what it should and what is realistic. The families run together in this book - who belongs to who, who has faith and who doesn't - it is very hard to keep straight.

The story was interesting, like I said, but there was a lot of back and forth that went on in the book. It was an easy read but I'm not sure I'd recommend this book to everyone to read.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.

Angel Tree 2011

2011-12-20T08:33:00.008-05:00

I want to go ahead and post about our Angel Tree delivery before the week gets away from me. I'm terrified I'm going to forget to thank someone, so if I do, know that it's because my brain is still fried and in overload mode - it's nothing personal!

Last year we sponsored 94 families. This year I numbered the people a bit differently so I'm not sure exactly how many families there were, but I know there were 147 people. And we'll have two more done before Christmas Day (they don't go to the Head Start but needed our help.)

And just like last year, we had parents cry. Heck, we cried! We had parents who were so happy they started dancing and praising God. I loved those people!!

We had a toy bin set up that also had winter coats and mitten sets for whoever needed them. Many of the toys were donated from Beulah Hill's ladies group. A lot of them were donated from The Classy Paci consignment store in Carthage. The mittens came from New2U in Taylortown and the coats were donated by someone in our church (anonymous).

The stories I have this year for Angel Tree are huge. We really didn't have any more people to sponsor this year than we did last year, but people's financial situations are totally different this year. I know there are so many people in our church right now that are having trouble making ends meet. I had countless people call me and apologize for not being able to sponsor a child. I completely understood their situation and I felt bad that they were even calling to tell me this. After all, I don't know who sponsors a child and who doesn't. I set a deadline of December 4 for all the presents to be wrapped and at the church.

On December 4, out of 147 people that were supposed to have Christmas presents, about 50 had been turned in. My sister had written blog posts asking people to help, and from that we ended up getting about 20 more kids sponsored, between her book club, friends, and in-laws. It made me really excited! Then I got phone calls from people at church saying they had coworkers who wanted to help. There went a handful more of people who would have Christmas.

Before the December 4 deadline, though, something really amazing happened. In one night at church, we had a huge bag of Wii games donated and we also had a $1,000 check given to us. (I blogged about that here.) Someone read that blog, called me, and said they wanted to donate a Wii game system to the Angel Tree. The next Sunday I received a $500 check. My sister's mother-in-law went shopping and bought a bunch of random items people had asked for (like sheets, towels, etc.) I had five people at church who took money and went shopping for me so I didn't have to do all the shopping by myself. My sister did last-minute shopping for me two days before the delivery. I had people from the church and my parents who helped me wrap at the church every night for two weeks until the delivery - sometimes until 10:30pm or later.

The Friday before the delivery I had three people meet me at the church. Another girl and myself loaded up my truck and her van and we drove a load of presents up to the Candor Head Start, where the delivery would take place. The rest of the people stayed behind at our church and loaded up our church bus. By the time we got back from Candor we found out the entire bus was full. So my truck was loaded up again. :)

The delivery was at 8am on Saturday. There were two ladies from Head Start and 5 adults, 5 kids from our church who did the unloading and sorting of presents. It wasn't long before a line started forming for people to pick up their gifts!!

Many of the parents didn't bring their children because these are the only presents their kids are getting for Christmas. I tried to take good pictures but I was so busy making sure all the presents were there and watching the parents' faces that I didn't get a ton!

I know some of the background stories of some of these families, but most just need a little extra help due to illness or being unemployed.

This is a young lady who has two small children and is a single mom. She's trying to finish school and I know she needs a lot of help but doesn't ask for much. Someone donated a stroller for her kids and you can see in one of the next pictures how much one of her daughters loved it!

This little girl could walk just as well as you or I last year. But suddenly she started having issues with her body. She can't walk well anymore (I thought she was born with leg deformities before I found out the story) and she has seizures. The family has no idea what's wrong with her. Heartbreaking, but you should have seen the smile on her face when she walked out of there with her presents!

A reindeer came to visit us! Made me wish I had worn my reindeer antlers from the Reindeer Run!

I love this picture. It's never too early to start teaching your kids about the spirit of giving. If Brianna was a little bit older (and less hyper) I would have brought her to this event.

Big haul!

What a sweet little girl!!

But when one of our "elves" tried to carry her present out to her car for her, she started crying! Haha! She just had to carry out the present that was bigger than she was!

I really and truly have no good way to express my thanks to everyone. I can't believe the people from outside our church who stepped up to help us. The people in our church who gave so generously with their money and time. My family who also gave very generously with money and time (including watching my kids a lot so I could be at the church!) My husband who wanted me home every night and didn't get what he wanted, but put up with it.

I still wish we could have done more. I always wish we could have done more, but my hope is that we did enough that even just one person will come to know how good God is through this ministry.

And hopefully it made all of us remember what Christmas is all about. I'd be lying if I said the presents don't matter. I took Brianna and Hunter shopping for the two kids we got off the Angel Tree and I LOVED being able to let them pick out toys for the kids. I wish with all my heart that I could see all of these kids open these presents on Christmas morning and see the look on their faces. But I also want them to know why we celebrate Christmas. Because, as Brianna will tell you, "Mary gonna have a baby. She name him Jesus. God's Son! Jesus loves [insert name: Mommy, Daddy, etc.]" Because God gave his only son for all of us, and I can't imagine giving up my child for half the lousy people in this world, and because Jesus took on our sin for us, and because I never have to worry about what is going to happen to me when I die (I'll be in heaven and hope to see YOU there!), that is why we celebrate Christmas.

So while you're drinking your hot chocolate by the fireplace Christmas morning (or coffee in my case, I'm sure) and watching your child's face light up when they get their toys from Santa Claus, please be sure to tell them where all these good things come from. Read the Christmas story. Even if you think your child is too young to understand. Tell them that Jesus really is the reason for this season, not Santa Claus, and not presents, and not food, and not decorations.

If I missed thanking anyone who was involved in the Angel Tree I am truly sorry. Please point it out to me and I'll give you your due praise, because I don't want to forget anyone!!!

Feeding Himself

2011-12-11T09:45:00.000-05:00

Hunter loves feeding himself, and usually I encourage it, particularly with foods he can eat with a fork or his hands. But one day I let him loose with yogurt. It was worth it for the laughter that it brought me watching him try to eat this slippery stuff!!

Advent Calendar

2011-12-07T06:50:00.000-05:00

A couple of months ago, Brianna found a really cute advent calendar at a yard sale that she just wouldn't put down. For $0.50, I obliged her, and it's actually REALLY cute.

But when I saw all these advent calendars on one of my favorite blogs, I knew I wanted to make one of those. I knew which one was just right for Brianna and Hunter!

My mother-in-law was kind enough to lend me some card stock. The background is one piece of card stock. We found a Santa icon online (we Googled images until we found one that we liked). We printed it to size (which was much harder than I had assumed it would be...) I traced each portion of Santa onto different colors of card stock and cut them out and glued them on the background together. Now, during the month of December, we will glue cotton balls onto Santa's beard. The closer Christmas is, the fuller his beard will appear! Bri definitely looks forward to this every day! I love how it turned out!

Visit With Old Friends

2011-12-06T08:19:00.000-05:00

Two months ago we had a lovely visit from Sally and her beautiful daughter Evelyn. Of course we took the opportunity to have a play date with all the kids, and of course it's taken me two months to blog about it. Dad blogged about it only days afterward of course - he's so good. So here are my pictures, better late than never!

We started off inside the house. Mom and Dad's grandkids were starving as usual so they (Brianna) spent most of the time eating instead of playing. This is why the rest of the pictures have Brianna sporting a red strawberry mouth.

Evelyn spent the first few minutes exploring the new-to-her toys and getting used to the chaos that has become the Loyd house!

But it wasn't long before Evelyn and Claire made their way to the swing on the front porch!

From there, we made it outside and then the fun really began!!

Evelyn started dinner for some baby dolls and Brianna and Claire jumped right on that.

Here is Claire serving tea to Grandpa. Brianna is cooking in the background.

Evelyn and Bri cooking together.

Hunter just laid on his back for an odd amount of time. He thought it was hilarious to throw the ball and just sit back and wait for someone to give it back to him.

The wagon-pulling was a huge event. Bri was more of a supervisor but Claire enjoyed riding!

And now it's Evelyn's turn!

Bri and Claire stand around, making sure Grandpa is following the road rules.

Here, Brianna continues to supervise Claire's trip in the wagon.

At this point, Evan wasn't NEARLY as mobile as he is now! I think he wanted in on the fun but just couldn't get his legs to cooperate!

All the kids were happy as can be when they were playing in the sand pile.

And the swings were a big hit as usual too!

So funny to think that Sally and I were rocking out this swingset about 20 years ago!!

The kids love it when you can play with a ball and a cardboard tube.

Hunter: "And when I open my eyes, a ball shall appear!"

We had a great day, and hope to have many more of these playdates in the future - especially when Sally adds another baby to the mix in early 2012! (Okay, we'll give him a few months to adjust to his new life, but then we will have to introduce him to the beauty of this backyard!)

College Life

2011-12-03T11:25:00.000-05:00

When I left for college (Go Mountaineers!), Gail gave me a book called "College Life". It was supposed to be a journal of sorts. I found it the other day and thought some of the things were fun to re-read.

Packing It All Up
"I went through five suitcases and duffel bags and so many bags for my "trinkets". This is insane! Am I packing too much??"

I'm gonna miss...
"Stephen. Mom washing my clothes for me. Jenn. Phase 10."

Advice I took with me
"Don't let anything pass you by. If you think you'll regret not doing something a year from now, just do it!"

Modes of transportation
- Appalcart
- Get ride from someone
- Walking (there are several stars next to this one; my main transportation!)

Why I Love This School
"It is full of awesome people. Everyone is so great! Classes are great, professors are overall cool, VIEW IS GORGEOUS!"

Best first-week activities
"Running around with Mary, Kristin, Lauren, Jess; meeting people; ice cream social"

About my living space
"Uh, 10x15. Enough said."

Extra-curricular activities
"Movies, Wing Night"

Cool care packages
"From Jenn - Contained pixie sticks, socks, candy and a card!"

Cool concerts
"Weekend Excursion" (If you know the story behind this concert this is even funnier.)

What finals I breezed through
"Old Testament Literature, Sociology, Statistics, Social Problems"

What finals I simply dreaded
"Geography, Archaeology, Social Issues"

About halfway through my second semester of freshman year I started a blog (not posting a link to that blog so no one can get any incriminating information from it!) so I quit writing as much in this book. It's still funny to me to see some of the pictures I put in here and little notes and stuff. I love finding things like this!

Hunter Says "Boo!"

2011-12-02T10:37:00.001-05:00

I laugh every time I see this video of Hunter trying to scare me.

Angel Tree Update

2011-12-01T08:37:00.002-05:00

Well, let me tell you how good God is.

A few days ago both my sister and I posted pleas on our blogs for help with my church's Angel Tree. We were having trouble making sure all the names got taken off the tree, and it wasn't due to people not wanting to pick a name, it is just because of the hard time people are having financially right now. And trust me, I know all about that, so I didn't want anyone to feel bad for not being able to take a name.

Just a side note - I don't know who gets names off the tree and who doesn't anyway, so I'm not keeping tabs, just for future reference!

Anyway, I had a friend who told me they wanted to donate some money for the Angel Tree. I was excited because I was thinking this was probably going to be a large check - my guess was $100. (To me, that's a large check!!)

Our church treasurer came up to me after church last night and said, "Hey, somebody made a donation to Fed By Faith." She was grinning like crazy but I just said, "Okay, great!" She kept grinning and said, "Do you want to sit down?" That's when I realized this was going to be a larger amount of money than I had thought. I'll be honest, my first thought was, "This is going to be a $500 check."

She looked me in the eyes and said, "One thousand dollars."

Whaaaaaat!?

Do you even have any idea what $1,000 will do for these kids? At this point, my family (in-laws of my sister are included in that) and my sister's book club have stepped up tremendously, along with other people at church chipping in to donate toys, and The Classy Paci donating a large amount of toys, and we were down to about 40 children left on the tree.

One issue we were having this year is that so many kids asked for video games, mainly Wii games. I was thinking about just going to Gamestop and buying some of the used games just so they'd get at least something.

Until last night, at church, when someone showed up with a big bag of Wii games they wanted to donate.

See, I'll admit I was starting to get a little worried about the Angel Tree. My husband and my best friend are both pessimists so between the two of them I was starting to think, "What in the world are we going to do if we can't do this?" When really, I should have realized, we can't do this. If we depend on ourselves, honestly, we can't do anything of substance. I talked to Cindy (pessimist friend) last Sunday after Stephen (pessimist husband) urged me to find out what would happen if we couldn't help all the kids on the tree. He wants to have a plan for everything! But after I talked to her I just couldn't get in the "spirit" of worrying. I just knew that if we were doing this for the right reasons (to give kids Christmas, to show people that God will provide for them) that God would work this out somehow. I've always been way too optimistic, just like my dad, but hey, it's worked for me so far!

So last night, at church, when I saw the stack of Wii games, I was giddy and I was so happy... but I have to admit I wasn't totally shocked. And when I was told about the $1000 donation, I was blown away by the generosity, but I wasn't totally shocked. I knew God was going to make this happen, as long as we make sure we don't make it about us.

I know people are going to say that the Angel Tree is happening because of people. People are buying the presents. People are donating cash. But tell me - who do you think gives people that spirit of giving and generosity? People in general are not good. People in general will run you over to get a leg up in the world and not think twice about it. Luke 18:19 in the Bible actually shows Jesus saying, "Why do you call me good? No one is good, except for God." (my paraphrase).

So today, I am telling you, the only way we are able to do this Angel Tree (or anything good) is because of God. So please thank God today for the generosity of people. For giving us hearts that want to help others. For giving people financial blessings so they can bless others. Because it all comes from Him.

General Cuteness

2011-12-01T07:36:00.000-05:00

Brianna's bookbag for school is actually one of MY old bookbags! Mom and Dad cleaned it up and she loves it! This bookbag is the talk of the preschool because it's so original!

The after-party of Hunter's 1st birthday party:

This is the life.

Christmas Tree 2011

2011-11-30T10:08:00.000-05:00

Our goal was to have our tree up by the Monday after Thanksgiving. Well, we had it up by Sunday but it took us until Tuesday night to have it decorated. That's okay though. Well worth the wait to not be rushed!

We just knew that this year Brianna would be thrilled at the opportunity to help us decorate the tree. Not so much. After the first couple of ornaments, it was more fun for her to create stories with the ornaments rather than hang them on the tree. But whatever kept her quiet!

I put some of the non-breakables in a basket for her and Hunter to play with. That turned out to be a great idea because it really kept them occupied and out from under our feet.

Every year I snap some pictures of my favorite ornaments. I try not to take pictures of the same ones year after year, but forgive me if I duplicate from previous years. There are certain ones I am always drawn to. :) This probably doesn't interest anyone else very much but all of my ornaments have special meaning to me which is why I love decorating the tree.

An ornament that Brianna and Leila ("Oma") made over Thanksgiving holidays. The camera lighting made this ornament look so cool! It is actually green but I love the way it looks with this light!

My 2011 ornament from Mom. She always picks ornaments that I love!

Some ornaments I got 75% off last Christmas! (I'm drawn to glitter, much to the chagrin of my hubby)

An ornament I got for Hunter last year... when it was 75% off. Whaaat!?

I remember buying this ornament when I was pregnant with Brianna in 2009! Ironic that her first handprint ornament from 2010 is in the background. :)

So over this tree-decorating thing.

Several people bought us "first-year" ornaments for our first Christmas together, but this was always my favorite. (From Jenn)

A quirky little snowwoman from my friend Tracey!

My new jingle bell ornaments... 75% last year, haha!

Another of Mom's originals. I love this one.

This was Brianna's ornament from Gail last year. Her first year as a big sister!

My new "disco ball" ornaments... guess I don't need to tell you I got them on sale.

I LOVE this ornament but for the life of me it's one of the only ones that I don't know where it came from!!

Brianna holding her 2011 hand up to her 2009 hand. Much bigger now!

Hunter's ornament last year from Gail:

Stephen despises tinsel. Loathes it. But he'll do pretty much anything for his two favorite women who just happen to LOVE the stuff!!

Finished product!

Angel Tree

2011-11-29T15:09:00.004-05:00

My sister is so amazing. I know she has SO. MUCH. going on in her life but she is working hard to help me spread the word about the Angel Tree we are doing at our church (not even her church. She's just that awesome.)

Last year, Fed By Faith (the food ministry I started in 2009) was given the opportunity to sponsor the Candor Head Start. Go here to see how amazing it was. Last year we helped 94 families (to give you an idea of how incredible that is, the Empty Stocking Fund helped 50 families in 2010.) I haven't counted the families for this year yet, but I'm sure it will be at least that many.

Unfortunately, many families in our church are struggling. Some families aren't struggling, and they are able to support one or two (or more) kids from our Angel Tree. Some families are barely making ends meet and just can't afford to support a child.

Trust me when I say I totally understand where those people are coming from. BUT, then I had a thought. What if the people who couldn't afford to sponsor one child could afford to buy a $10 board game? Or an $8 outfit? Or had a toy in their attic that had never been opened? If all those people came together, we could pull enough gifts together to sponsor all these children (and the staff at Head Start - don't get me started about how many hours they work compared to the amount of money they make.)

My sister took the time to write a post about this year's Angel Tree. And then she wrote another one. So I am finally sitting down to write a post to you, as well, in the hopes that you will feel led to help out in some way. If you can't, you can't, and I completely understand, whether it's finances or distance that keeps you from helping. But if you CAN help, you can comment here, or you can email me at "amanda.talbert at gmail.com" for more information.

Jenn has listed several of the available people on her blog, if you click here. But if you can't support a child, maybe you can donate one of these items that has been requested:

(These items can be unwrapped. I can arrange for pickup. Also, don't forget, cash donations are welcome!)

School supplies

Walmart gift card

Bath and Body Works gift card

Books A Million Gift card

anything Tar Heels

soccer ball

football

an iron

board games

Nintendo DSi games (if you have games you would get rid of but you KNOW they still work!)

Wii games (same as above)

Easy Bake oven

Itunes gift card

Old Navy gift card

game of Trouble (board game)

baseball glove (right-handed)

Selena Gomez CDs

Ross gift card

game of Operation

Bop It

Lincoln Logs

Space heater

Scrabble

Pictionary

Toilet paper

Paper towels

Bath towels

Twin bed sheets

Full bed sheets

Pots and pans

Silverware

Jewelry

gas card

lotions

Thank you, thank you, everyone involved in this! Look at the blog post from last year and hopefully it will kindle your Christmas spirit. :)

(P.S. If you want to make a Paypal donation I can work that out too. You can pay it to that email address as a "gift" if I'm remembering correctly.)

Not Enough Time

2011-11-28T20:04:00.003-05:00

I would post tonight but I am consumed with thoughts of our Angel Tree at church (I need to blog about this soon...), trying to list an enormous amount of stuff on ebay, decorating for Christmas, and now I have been told by Stephen that he will go to the commissary tomorrow and price check any items for me that I want him to. Do you know how giddy that makes me!?

I PROMISE I will try to make my posts more interesting in the future. I have SO MUCH to tell you!!

Last Minute

2011-11-27T22:49:00.002-05:00

Well, technically I have another hour to post something but I don't plan on staying awake for another hour. Between two church services today, choir practice this evening, putting up the Christmas tree this afternoon, actually watching the better part of a movie with Stephen and taking about an hour-long nap today... there has been no time to blog. I will try to do better tomorrow. :)

Christmas Spirit

2011-11-26T19:30:00.004-05:00

It's hard not to get into the Christmas spirit around here - Stephen starts singing Christmas songs around the Fourth of July and stops about the 3rd of July, if you get my drift, and Brianna's so doggone excited about Christmas she just can't contain herself!

Every year our family from Georgia comes to see us for Thanksgiving. Usually a few days after they leave we start setting up for Christmas. We actually don't get into decorations that much (we will do a lot more the older the kids get) but we always have a great time decorating the tree and dancing around the house singing carols. Tonight at dinner we were talking about Christmas after our family had just left a few hours prior, and while Stephen bathed both the kids I had a burst of energy. By the time they got out of the bath I had turned this:

into this:

And also, Christmas window decals were put up on the windows, the piano got decorated, and some of Brianna's Christmas presents were brought down from the attic so I can wrap them in the next couple of days.

I love this time of year - I feel so inspired. :)

Black Friday

2011-11-25T21:49:00.003-05:00

I don't do much for Black Friday. You would think because I am so ~~cheap~~ frugal that I would buy tons of stuff during Black Friday to save all kinds of money. But I really find that people go to insane lengths to save money on things they really don't need. I don't buy Christmas presents for anyone except my kids, for one thing, which really saves a lot of money. And at this point, my kids' Christmas presents have been bought for months.

Last year I went to Black Friday for the first time. I was still nursing Hunter so I was up anyway, around 4:30 or so, so he and I just hit the road to Walmart and I got a steam mop and a vacuum that we needed. I was in and out in about 30 minutes and we still use both of those products weekly.

Today I went to a lot more places but still with the same concept in mind.

Big Lots - 2 packs of batteries free after rebate
Food Lion - just a run for $0.19 Marcal paper towels
Walgreens - spent $36, got $45 back, all stuff to sell on ebay
Best Buy - got one video game for Stephen that was 50% off
Burke's Outlet - looking for winter clothes for me but didn't find anything
Claire's - hair products for me and Bri for just over $5
Belk - a shirt on sale for $10 that my mother-in-law bought for me

All of this was spread over the entire day, none of it took long at all, and it was all worth it. In fact, most places like Best Buy and Food Lion I was able to leave the car running with the kids and Leila in it and just run through the line quickly at the store, taking less than five minutes.

Lunch was at Mellow Mushroom - finally we got to try our new one. The pizza was delicious of course!

I made barbecue for dinner, got a yummy caramel brulee latte from Starbucks this evening, spent some quality time with my sister-in-law Jennifer at the Plaza in Southern Pines, got to see my nephew Kaleb tonight, saw several friends while we were out and about town this afternoon, and topped the evening off by watching Brianna have a very interesting, inventive, creative conversation with Leila before bedtime. As "Miss Blank" (that is her preschool teacher) she instructed Leila as to what items were being put in her pocketbook (she would put one item at a time into her pocketbook only to realize she had put her toy car keys in the VERY BOTTOM, so she'd have to dump the whole thing out only to start again!), she explained that they could have snack but they could not play outside because, "You can't play outside when it's dark outside", and even read two books and a Bible story to Leila to finish up. I love her imagination and there aren't many hours in the day I get to just sit and watch her anymore.

So I'd have to say today was a very good day. More about Thanksgiving later!

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T21:08:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving! We are spending the day with out-of-town family who we rarely see so I won't really be around to blog! Happy eating-your-weight-in-turkey day!

And DON'T forget to thank God for all your blessings today!!

Happy Hunting

2011-11-23T21:04:00.004-05:00

I went hunting with Stephen for the first time in about ten years tonight. In recent years when we've had more opportunities to go hunting, we can't go together because of the kids. Tonight, though, Leila offered to watch the kids so that we could go together. It was in the 60's and although it was windy, the weather was really nice for sitting outside for a few hours. I finished my book (Bitter Harvest by Ann Rule, an author I have been turned onto by Granddaddy), we sat in silence for a long time (not brought on by a quarrel), and basically just enjoyed nature. Next time I am bringing binoculars. There was so much happening with the birds, and I am really dorky in that I like to figure out which birds are fighting, which ones are gossiping, I look at their beautiful colors and bodies - I know, I am like an old fogey. But anyway, it was really nice and I am so happy we got the opportunity finally to go together!

Dinner!

2011-11-22T16:59:00.002-05:00

Stephen killed a 9-point deer this morning! That is an answer to prayer because we just can't afford to have to pay for meat and we were getting low-ish on venison in our freezer. I was actually just telling people the other day that I was praying for him to get a deer. So, answer to prayer this morning! Yay!

Bath Time

2011-11-21T20:13:00.000-05:00

Our kids take baths together, 35% to save time/water and 65% because they have so much fun together. I am truly thankful for many of the games we are able to see them come up with. This particular night I am thinking of, they began screaming at each other as if to see who could scream louder. Then they would both erupt in loud laughter and one of them would break the laughter only to start screaming again. Most people might be irritated by the loud noises, but hey, we don't have close neighbors, and so our little family of four got a kick out of these shenanigans. Very blessed.

Disappointment

2011-11-21T17:35:00.002-05:00

I had a life disappointment today. I have a produce guy that I go to regularly but he's closed on Mondays. I went to another local produce stand down the road to get a couple of things. While I was paying for my yummy sweet potatoes I realized he had oranges.

Oranges?

We live in North Carolina, if you hadn't noticed.

I said politely, "Um, where did you get oranges from?" Florida.

Ooookay.

Then I said, "So I noticed last week that you had watermelons. Where were those from?" Peru. Peru, people.

I can't believe I thought all roadside stands were selling local produce just because the one I go to regularly does. I definitely urge you to check out where your stuff is coming from, especially if you are really trying to buy local and organic like I do. I won't be buying from him again in the future, unfortunately.

Conversations

2011-11-20T15:47:00.000-05:00

Brianna is all the time having conversations with people - very animated conversations, and most of the time they have no clue what she's saying. Here she is on the phone with Nenah a couple of months ago. You can figure out most of what she's saying I think, although a lot of it is just gibberish.

Daddy's Coming!

2011-11-19T15:00:00.000-05:00

Back in September, a few days before Stephen came home from deployment I was prepping Brianna to see him. We didn't know if she'd be shy around him or anything, so I was really talking him up and making sure she knew to hug him and kiss him when he came home. In this video, I'm getting her to tell me what she's going to do when she sees him - and trust me, when she saw him, she definitely hugged and kissed him first thing!!

Thanksgiving Program

2011-11-18T09:56:00.002-05:00

Tonight is Brianna's first Thanksgiving program. So for the last six weeks all we have heard around the house is:

"It's a hoooooliday, a hooooliday, a hooooliday. It's a hoooooliday, Thanksgiving is the one. On this day we eat turkey, we eat turkey, we eat turkey. On this day we eat turkey and pumpkin pie too."

"Gobble gobble gobble gobble, fat turkeys are we!"

And a couple more songs that are in the program. I promise you, I sing them all. day. long.

So today I am spending the day:

making cornbread for the Thanksgiving "feast" after the program
making a pumpkin roll for said "feast"
making sure the camcorder is charged
impatiently awaiting for Leila to get here - she's flying in early for Thanksgiving and Stephen is picking her up this afternoon!

Okay, it doesn't sound like a lot when I bullet-point it. But I have to get on it and get off HERE!

Hunter's Second 1st Party

2011-11-17T08:32:00.004-05:00

I blogged the other day about Hunter's first 1st party on Skype. A few days after that we had his party here at our house.

As you can see, I took so many pictures. Actually, Jenn took a ton but I can't figure out how to get them from Snapfish to my blog without the pictures becoming miniscule. Sorry. Needless to say, we had a BALL! And we have thoroughly enjoyed having Hunter in our family for over a year. Here's to the next 80+! :)

Friends!

2011-11-16T10:55:00.003-05:00

The other day (okay it's been about six weeks ago now), Brianna noticed that Hunter had climbed up the slide and was playing. So she scurried up after him, swung her arm around his shoulder and said, "Look, Mommy, two friends!" I was ooh-ing and aah-ing at her sweetness so much that she said, "Take pictures!!"

They're so sweet.

Stop and Think

2011-11-14T23:04:00.000-05:00

Okay, raise your hand if you've ever seen this picture. If you didn't raise your hand you either don't watch the news, don't read the news, don't have email, or don't have a Facebook account. This picture has circulated ever since Obama was elected President and I can't believe people are STILL posting this on Facebook. Are you kidding me?

The claim is that President Obama won't put his hand over his heart for the National Anthem, basically because he is Muslim. And he is so evil and a socialist and trying to destroy our country from within and ICAN'TBELIEVEHEREFUSESTOPUTHISHANDOVERHISHEART!!!!

I try not to get into politics on this blog, mainly for the reason that I don't know enough about politics to talk about them, but this is just interesting to me. Growing up, I was taught to put my hand over my heart during the National Anthem. I still do it as a reflex. I don't know why we do it, we just do.

Last weekend when we were at the tractor pull, they played the National Anthem before starting the races. As I looked around, I realized approximately 90% of people did not have their hands over their hearts. Lots of people didn't stand up. Some people carried on conversations during the song. I actually felt awkward that I was one of the few with my hand over my heart, like I was suddenly unsure that was the "correct" thing to do!

It made me stop and think back to when this picture was really prominent on the internet (usually followed with something like, "Obama MUSLIM hates America!!" or something else ridiculous). And I realized I'm not even sure people are being taught to put their hands over their hearts for the National Anthem anymore. Does anyone know? Anyway, I asked Stephen on the way home from the tractor pull about it (he's military) and he actually said to him it's almost reflex to simply stand at attention, because that's what they do in the military rather than placing their hands over their hearts.

Talking during the song? I think that's a little disrespectful, but I'm not going to judge you.

Not standing during the song? I mean, I really think you can get off your toosh for two minutes out of respect, but again, I won't judge you.

Not placing your hand over your heart? Obviously this is only a big deal when our President doesn't do it for whatever reason. Again, I won't judge you.

I'm not getting into politics and respect for the military or respect for the country or any of that. Actually the reason I'm writing this post is for you to stop and think before posting a dumb picture like this on Facebook or some other social network and writing "People, see this man is not American... please get him out of office."

Don't embarrass yourself. You might not like Obama. You might not have voted for him. You might have voted for him and now wish you didn't. All that is beside the point. He is our elected leader, and you're supposed to show respect for your leaders. Actually, Romans 13:1 from the Bible (NIV translation) hits the nail on the head:

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.

I guess it just makes me irritated when people put stupid things like the "no-hand" situation in emails or on social networks, and then I go to a public event and see 90% of the population do the exact same thing and no one says anything to those people.

So please, please, stop and think before you send out that email, or put something on Facebook. And if you dislike the people we have in authority, I suggest you do two things:

1) pray for them.

2) vote.

I wrote this post after a VERY long night and re-read it 24 hours later. Not all of it makes sense to me (based on what I was actually trying to get across) but I'm still going to post it. If I need to explain anything I was trying to say, please feel free to comment (not bash me!) and I'll try to clarify my meaning.

Hunter's First Party

2011-11-14T18:06:00.000-05:00

That is what's called a "double title". See, because this was Hunter's 1st birthday but these pictures are from his first party. See how clever I am??

Our family from Georgia unfortunately could not make it to Hunter's birthday party, so they mailed his present and we opened it while we Skyped with them. Success! The only problem was that the presents were so good the kids kind of forgot about the fact that we were Skyping with our family...

Patiently waiting for Skype to come up... poor child doesn't realize these are Hunter's presents!

"Daddy, let me help you!"

First thing that happens: Brianna finds that she does have a present! A very cool magic-color book!

"Hunter, allow me to help you."

Bri attempts to take pictures for us:

#17 - Make Cookie Cutter Ornaments

2011-11-13T07:52:00.000-05:00

Finally, I get to cross something else off my 101 in 1001 list!

Yesterday Brianna and I (and kind of Hunter) made cookie cutter ornaments. What an easy craft, and they turned out so cute!

I stopped by a local thrift store this morning and bought some Christmas cookie cutters - a sleigh, an angel, a teddy bear (I guess that's not really Christmas...) and a gingerbread man. They were 25 cents each. I had scrapbooking paper that Leila left here after she designed Brianna's nursery. (Thank you Leila!) And I already had the beads and ribbon I used. CHEAP!

First, you're going to want to trace the ornament onto a piece of patterned paper or you can photocopy pictures onto card stock. I did it on a cutting board because for my first ornament, I cut it out using an X-Acto knife. I highly recommend just using sewing scissors - the knife worked well but I had to go back around and fix the jagged edges.

Trace the ornament onto the paper:

Cut it out:

Dab craft glue (I used tacky glue) along the cookie cutter's edge. Press the paper in place and let dry. Thread a ribbon through a needle; poke between paper and cookie cutter, and wrap ribbon around top of cutter. Slip a bead over ribbon's ends; knot.

As you can see, I tweaked it a little bit. The beads I had wouldn't fit through the ribbon I had (and liked), so instead, I just used two beads and knotted the ribbon at the top.

Voila! Easy Christmas ornaments, and these would make a cute gift too!

Pictures Again

2011-11-12T07:45:00.000-05:00

These are all from September. I can't believe I still have pictures from September sitting on my camera, but yes, I see I haven't even blogged about Hunter's birthday parties yet. I'll get there eventually. Definitely by December. Until then...

Brianna is learning to take pictures. She's actually not too bad. Here we are playing with the camera.

Let Brianna show you the steps of changing a diaper. Our cousin Emma actually knit(ted?) this blanket for Bri when she was a baby! Now Bri can use it for her baby dolls!

1. Lay Baby down.

2. Lift Baby's legs.

3. Quickly slide diaper under Baby.

4. And you're on your way to a clean Baby! (She actually does help change Hunter's diapers, don't ask me why she wants to do that.)

This is what exhaustion looks like:

Or perhaps this:

September is also when Bri learned how to draw smiley faces!

On the Move

2011-11-11T15:39:00.004-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, Hunter kind of started walking. I never noted it on my blog, but that's okay because I looked back to 2010 and I never noted on here when Brianna started walking either. I know she was around 15 months old but I guess it wasn't that big a deal to make an entire post out of. So, Hunter took a few steps, and he walked back and forth between me and Stephen some, but nothing like walking across the entire room or anything. But one day Brianna noticed me walking with Hunter, holding one of his hands. Behold, a new form of entertainment was born. Now, pretty regularly, she will got to Hunter and say, "Hunter, wanna walk with me?" These pictures and video were taken the first day they did this together. They thought it was hilarious. It kept them occupied for so. long.

From the kitchen...

Into the bedroom...

Out of the bedroom...

Back into the bedroom...

Not sure if you can tell here, but every time he would fall he would reach right back up for her!

Into the closet... (it's puzzle mania in here!)

Oh! Good catch!

A short video of it:

Musical Girl

2011-11-10T08:42:00.002-05:00

I've been meaning to write a post about how musical Brianna is. Now, I assume most kids around 2 years old may show an interest in music because I know at even younger than the age of one they are able to clap and show interest in rhythm and sway and things like that. So I'm not saying she's more musical than other kids her age, all I'm saying is that I love how quickly she is able to learn songs because it creates some really fun games for us! (I can distinctly remember my niece Claire singing one of the songs from "Happy Feet" when she was like 16-18 months old or something like that, so it just goes to show that they can learn them very early!)

Part of Brianna's bedtime routine has always been to sing to her. This was created by her and the songs really haven't changed in a year and a half. When she was about 21 months old, we put her in Kindermusik, which is like a Mommy and Me music class. Here at 31 months (whaaaa!?!?) she is still loving it. We did a curriculum last year that featured different songs so she is learning totally new songs this year, which is great considering we have the CDs from last year's classes so we can still hear them anytime we want. So some of her favorite songs are songs the average person probably wouldn't know. But now she has added in some of her favorite songs to her bedtime routine: Amazing Grace, You Are My Sunshine, Twinkle Twinkle, I'm a Little Teapot, I'm in the Lord's Army, Zaccheus, Ring Around the Roses, and usually something from preschool. For some reason she never requests some of her favorites, like Muffin Man, Hokey Pokey or Get On Board. Usually I have to tell her we're going to stop singing because the singing part of the bedtime routine can take 20 minutes, especially if I'm feeling especially kind.

All this to say, she picks up songs really quickly, learning the words and the melody, and I totally love it. She sits with me in choir practice a lot, and although she spends a lot of her time coloring, she does a lot of dancing as well, and also when we finish a song she will say, "Again!?"

She doesn't understand that on Sunday nights at church there is choir practice and on Wednesday nights there isn't. (Obviously I don't expect her to understand this...) So basically every time we walk into church she says, "We're going to choir?" or "I wanna do choir". Last night at church when she walked in saying that, Stephen and I looked at each other and said, "Well, go on up and sing with a microphone!" We always get there early because youth group starts 30 minutes before regular church, so while there were people milling about it wasn't an overwhelming number. She took a microphone up to the front with her but when she realized people where watching her she hid under the pulpit and refused to sing - "Mommy do it!" After just a couple of minutes, though, she realized no one could see her in her hiding spot and she started belting it out. I had to hold the microphone up to her mouth for her rendition of Amazing Grace but by the time she got to You Are My Sunshine she was holding the mic like an expert and really singing out!

Someone asked if she would do it on a Sunday and I said, probably if she could hide under the pulpit again! Haha!

More Pictures

2011-11-09T15:07:00.001-05:00

Brianna really wanted to wear one of my shirts the other day, although it was certainly more like a dress on her! Here she is getting her very first My Little Pony, courtesy of Gail!

t's not very often that Bri gets to pick out her own clothes - all the kids clothes are in a downstairs closet even though both their bedrooms are upstairs. Having the clothes in a downstairs closet makes it easier on ME to just throw out some random clothes in the morning. But every so often she does get the opportunity to rummage through the closet. Thus, the sweatshirt/dress/leggings outfit is born:

Believe it or not, he's not asleep. Hunter is such a chill kid - he just lounges on the couch like this!

Jenn and I after the Scarecrow Run (5K) last month! We both placed 2nd in our age groups! My time was 28:46 if I remember the seconds correctly, which knocks off almost two whole minutes from my time in March. Now I only need to knock off six more minutes before I can compete with my other sister Jennifer!

This is what tends to happen when stickers are given out after Kindermusik:

Brianna is obviously my daughter. Here she is enjoying sushi with me while Stephen was deployed. (Hers was just Nori seaweed and rice!)

One day I updated my status on Facebook - at Kindermusik the kids are encouraged to "wash" the walls with dry sponges and sing a song called "Wishy Washy". Imagine my surprise one day when Brianna carried that over to our own house. Although instead of a dry sponge she was using lotion and her hands!

My response: give her Windex and a rag.

Making Cookies

2011-11-08T09:29:00.000-05:00

I walked into the bedroom the other day where Brianna was playing. She had gotten cupcake liners from one of the kitchen drawers and hand sanitizer from the diaper bag. She set out all the cupcake liners in a row and was squeezing small amounts of the sanitizer into each liner. When I walked in she proclaimed that she was making cookies and when I began to protest she said fervently, "But they're COOKING!" So, what could I do? I only let her make a dozen.

More Pictures To Explain Life

2011-11-07T09:32:00.000-05:00

A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to host a giveaway on my frugal blog for Betty Crocker. I got a new pan and cookie mix to product test, review, and then give away another set! It was not rigged, but my mom actually won the giveaway!

Meanwhile, Brianna and I had a ball making the cookies to product test and review!

The mailing paper was perfect for Brianna to color on!

She loves making cookies! (Loves eating them more!)

Tractor Pull 2011

2011-11-06T07:03:00.001-05:00

We spent Saturday at the Tractor Pull in Carthage. I had never been to a tractor pull, nor did I have any clue what it entailed. But Stephen had been a couple of years ago, and we had an "in" because his dad does the landscaping for this event! Even though it was a bit windy we wanted to chance it for the opportunity to have an outing with the kids, not to mention Grandpa Talbert, Lauren, Scott and Kaleb were all there too! We started off our day with some yummy bagged lunches. Hunter chowed down an entire BBQ sandwich! That's my boy!

Plenty of space to run around!

Not sure if you can see, this is a small train that rode all over the huge area out here. We didn't stand in line for it but maybe next year!

Tons of old cars were being displayed!

Including this one! 105 years old - you could ride in it for any amount donated to Multiple Sclerosis research! Let me tell you, this was a very cool car!!

A model railway set up near the tractors - the train actually ran and the model is of our surrounding counties! So cool! They even had the Harnett County Fair set up, ferris wheel and all! They also had a model train set up for sale and had a notice saying they would custom build for you. How cool is that!?

The Confederates took over part of the fields. They even had cornbread and sausage cooked for you to taste! They had a fire burning, tons of historical weaponry and "camping" supplies laid out for you to look at. So interesting! They were so willing to sit around and chat with us!

Biggest wheel ever?

Now allow me to get to the good stuff!! Tractors were lined up all over where the strip was.

Some were very modern and so cool.

Stephen said he heard people say there were tractors there that ranged from $2,000 to $50,000. And the ages of the drivers we saw were anywhere from 18 to in their 70's. And the coolest thing is they weren't even competing for money. They just do it for the love of it - and their trophy!

Mommy's happy little boy! He loved crawling around making new friends! He crawled right up to the man sitting near us and pulled right up on him. Fortunately the man kindly scooped him up in his lap and held him for a couple of tractor pulls! I'm so thankful for strangers who are kind to my attention-starved children!

Uh-oh... Daddy's sleepy little boy! A few hours after we got there Hunter passed out from exhaustion! Probably from all that crawling around!

Just in case you are like me and don't know anything about tractor pulling, these two videos should give you a good idea. They won't rumble your speakers like it did our eardrums but you'll still give you the gist of the event! It reminded me some of monster trucks, which we also love!

The first video (each are not long at all) will show you a larger, bulkier, slower type of tractor. The second video is much faster and you can see how it really tears up the ground - literally! The second kind of tractor is the kind that they told us to make sure to cover our children's ears - it was certainly ear-splitting, and with no barriers between us and the track we were just about 10-15 feet from the actual tractors.

What Does It Say?

2011-11-05T21:39:00.000-04:00

She knows exactly what this shirt says, because this is exactly what she is!! (If you can't understand her or read the shirt, it says "Drama Queen"!)

A Good and Perfect Gift

2011-11-04T09:45:00.002-04:00

I got a different kind of book from Bethany House to review recently. I normally go for fiction books because I love all types of fiction and am always looking for a new author to read. But it is also true that I love nonfiction books, as long as they are easily read, well-written, and the point of the story interests me. So when I read the back cover of this book, I was intrigued. "Things don't always go as planned - especially when it comes to our children. When her first baby, Penny, is given a frightening diagnosis, Amy Julia's world comes crashing down." Talk about suspense!! What in the world could this diagnosis be? How would they ever get through it?

Then I started reading the book. The "frightening diagnosis" that was given to the child was actually Down's Syndrome. I have to be honest. When I first read that I kind of rolled my eyes. I admit, I only personally know a couple of people with Down Syndrome, but I would certainly never call it a frightening diagnosis. I started wondering what kind of dramatic book this was going to be.

But then, as I got further in the book, I realized how scary it really can be. Down Syndrome, like many other health issues, has a very wide spectrum. So there are people with Down's who may never speak. The individuals I know with Down's may have some mild health issues but they are healthy for the most part, speak well, one is an adult and has a job, both participate in Special Olympics, etc. But I started to see this mother's perspective - all those things are great, but it's still not what you necessarily want for your child. Here's an example from the book:

You know, there are all these people who try to console me about Penny by telling me about the "normal" things she'll be able to do. They tell me about a young man with Down Syndrome they know who takes a bus to work every day. And I think, "That's supposed to be good news, that my daughter won't be able to drive a car but might have a job?"

I realized not everyone is so comfortable handling a child with disabilities. I can't say for sure how I would handle it. And I certainly didn't realize all the health concerns that came with this syndrome.

All in all, the book was very interesting. I applaud the author for her honesty, even if I feel like I would have handled some of the situations differently. A very interesting read if you like true-life stories like this.

I received this book for free from Bethany House Publishing Group for this review. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.

Halloween 2011

2011-11-03T07:22:00.000-04:00

Our family is well-known for dragging out holidays and birthdays. And when I say "our" family, I do mean both my original family as well as my in-laws. It looks like I married into the right type of brood. We will celebrate multiple times, have multiple cakes, and do it all six weeks after the fact. We don't care, we just like to party. So it just makes sense that we do the same with Halloween!

This was the first year that we knew Brianna could start to understand what in the heck was going on at Halloween.

In 2009, she participated as a pumpkin, but she was just six months old. We ate all of her candy and she slept through most of the excitement at our church fall festival.

Last year she actually got a pail (mine from when I was a little girl!) and went trick-or-treating (to my parents and grandparents only) and was only slightly impressed by our Trunk-or-Treat at church. Plus we had someone new last year... not really in costume!

So we went full force in 2011, the Year of Brianna Understanding! Of course, "full force" for us is like "half force" for tons of other parents around the globe.

We took her a couple of weeks ago to pick out her Halloween costume. I was so looking forward to taking her to pick out her own costume! I couldn't wait to see what she picked. I already blogged about our fall festival at church, so you know the end of this book. She chose Snow White and poor Hunter got stuck with the leftovers from last year!

We had BIG plans for Monday, Halloween night, so instead of going to all the houses we wanted to in one night, we split up the nights. Saturday we went to see Granny and Granddaddy at their house, and then my parents at their house. Claire and Evan were at my grandparents' which made the whole night so much better! Granny and Granddaddy didn't even seem to notice the chaos, they were just thrilled that they finally had an excuse to give the kids all the candy they could ever want!

We had a pirate (Evan), butterfly (Claire), Snow White (Brianna) and a pumpkin (Hunter)!

Hunter was mainly content just to sit in Granny's lap and eat crackers!

The girls got candy and treats in their bags but they were still desperate for some of "Granddaddy's crackers"!

Unfortunately, my memory card on my camera was so low by the time we got to mom and dad's that I didn't get any pictures there.

Mondays are always busy for us but this one was especially busy! Brianna has preschool from 9-12, then we hurry home to eat lunch and take naps before leaving at 4:20 for Kindermusik. Because it was Halloween, the kids were allowed to wear their costumes to Kindermusik. Our whole family went for the first time ever and we had a blast! Brianna showed off more than ever and Hunter loved it as well!

After Kindermusik we drove straight to a big neighborhood in Pinehurst where we were meeting friends to go trick-or-treating together. I only got a couple of (bad) pictures before it got too dark to be snapping pictures.

It didn't take but about four houses before Brianna got the hang of saying, "Trick or Treat!!" although she normally said it before the people even opened the door! We ended up being there for over two hours and the kids absolutely loved it. Well, Hunter didn't really care, but the rest of the kids had a ball!

When we were leaving for mom and dad's yesterday for lunch, I asked Bri what she wanted to wear and she said, "Snow White!!" So much for my worries that I wouldn't be able to get her back into that costume after the fall festival...

Life Update Via Pictures

2011-11-02T08:35:00.000-04:00

Brianna and Hunter "helping" me pack for Fed By Faith. And suddenly, a tower was born.

We play these games where we build towers around objects to hide them and then knock the tower over to find them. When we were doing this to Baby Doll, though, it looked more like a sacrificial ritual was going on.

Meh, it didn't last long anyway!

Bri and Hunter are big fans of my homemade pizza (Stephen thinks I put too many vegetables on top!)

"Ooh, ooh! Hot, hot!"

NaBloPoMo

2011-11-01T11:14:00.000-04:00

Welcome to a new month! I love this time of year. I wish that October-April had the weather from the summer months, but the beauty of the fall months. I hate cold weather but I love everything that comes with it - the leaves changing, sitting by the fire, drinking hot chocolate and having it make me feel cozy instead of sweaty... plus we're getting into the holidays which I totally love even more since we quit giving gifts years ago!! I can just concentrate on loving on my family and friends!

Anyway, I am going to attempt to post every day in November; participating in NaBloPoMo for the second or third time in my life.

I at least made it through day one. That's usually the hardest for me.

Bathroom Remodel

2011-10-27T13:24:00.000-04:00

If you're on Facebook, you've already seen these pictures. We just finished getting new ceramic tile in our bathroom and we love it already! We got the tile from J.B. Short Carpet One (a local business) and we're so happy with the finished product. Brianna fell in love with the tile guy which is just too funny. He finished the work yesterday and today she was saying, "Where's Mr. Jeff?"

So these are the "before" pictures. We actually loved the tile in the bathroom (which came with the house) but it had stress cracks which were just getting worse. And we didn't even have any arguments about which tile to pick! This was the most stress-free home repair ever. Actually, it was our first major home repair, so that's not saying much. Anyway, as I was saying... "before":

Finished product!

Now it looks so good we are talking about repainting and getting new blinds so the rest of the bathroom looks that good... which means we are going to have to remodel the whole house to keep up now! :)

Honestly, we are extremely glad with how it turned out. It was so easy for us to make decisions on this, it was a small job so only took three days, there were no glitches, it went so smoothly, and we love the look! So I'm super happy with this project. And best of all for a ~~cheapo~~ frugal gal like myself? We're able to pay for it in cash, so we didn't take on any debt by doing this project! Now that's what I consider a win-win-win-win!

Fall Festival 2011

2011-10-24T18:22:00.001-04:00

Saturday was our Fall Festival at church. A little more low-key this year than other years, but we still enjoyed it. Hunter was a pumpkin (hand-me-down costume from Bri). We took Brianna costume shopping on Thursday to let her pick out what she wanted to be. The first thing she picked out? A garden gnome. Although I consider myself to be a pretty liberal, easygoing mom, I gently urged her to find something a bit more feminine. Her next pick was a male police officer uniform. I could tell we weren't going to get anywhere fast. But then. She saw it. In the back. Behind some other costumes.

Snow White!!

She loves Snow White the book and knew immediately who she was when she saw this costume. She was so excited so we grabbed the last one off the shelf (just happened to be in her size, thank goodness!) and took it home.

Hunter the pumpkin:

Snow White:

Oma got Hunter some new kicks and we were going to test them out tonight. Unfortunately they were too bulky for him but we'll try again soon!

Brianna's first time in a bouncy house (and Hunter's but I didn't get pictures of him):

Bri's first time getting her face/body painted!

Bri playing with the most precious baby ever, Heaven!

We had a great time!!

Her Personality

2011-10-23T08:07:00.000-04:00

This video shows Brianna's personality right at the end of it. We sing a song from Kindermusik, but after just a few animals, she says, "No. Stop. Yay! We did it!" So funny.

Singing at the Table

2011-10-22T11:14:00.001-04:00

This was a couple of months ago so I don't remember exactly what we were doing here. In the beginning of this video I was telling Bri that the bib wouldn't fit her but she was determined to put it on. She says, "Mommy look... I'll clean it." Then: "No spill", while shaking her head and drinking at the same time. She then launches into several songs. This always makes me smile.

Normal Day

2011-10-21T09:53:00.002-04:00

A normal day at our house consists of throwing things. I tried to translate throughout the video just in case you don't understand Bri-speak. :)

Traffic Lights

2011-10-20T19:23:00.002-04:00

Snack for preschool tomorrow:

Graham cracker + vanilla frosting + M&Ms = traffic light

Easy peasy!

Walk Along, Rover

2011-10-19T09:19:00.000-04:00

One of the songs from Bri's Kindermusik curriculum last year, called "Walk Along, Rover" (includes "Roll over, Rover!"

Can You Eat Acorns?

2011-10-18T19:24:00.002-04:00

Well, these you can!

This is our week to do snacks at preschool. Because we had family in town, I actually just sent Stephen to the store late on Sunday for a last-minute pickup of string cheese, juice, applesauce and fruit snacks. But tomorrow's snack will have a little "umph"! I'm doing just simple stuff again (Go-Gurt and either pretzels or zucchini cookies) but we're also having acorns!

So easy I thought you might want to follow these easy instructions and do it yourself!

All you need is:

Hershey's chocolate kisses
Mini Nilla wafers
Thin pretzel sticks
Chocolate icing

Put a tiny bit of icing on the wafer. Stick the flat side of the kiss to the underside of the wafer. Put a little dab of icing on the top of the wafer and break a tiny piece of pretzel off. Put the pretzel in the icing. They will need to set for an hour or so.

I love this idea and it only took me 10-15 minutes to make about 30! (The worst part is unwrapping the kisses!) Anyone else have cute snack ideas to share?

Waiting? Watching? For What?

2011-10-13T18:48:00.003-04:00

You never know what you'll find in the nooks and crannies of your house when you have kids, am I right?

I lifted the blinds in our bathroom today so I could wash the windows:

Look who was standing there!

What's he doing? Waiting for Christmas? Santa looks very forlorn to me. Not sure why he's staring out our bathroom window but after I finished cleaning I left him to his thoughts.

Look Out

2011-10-09T22:50:00.006-04:00

Alright, look out, because not only have I not been blogging updates, that means I haven't been putting up pictures and videos of my cutie patootie family. So within the next couple of weeks there may be an overload here. I apologize in advance.

This slide was a great investment last year, both kids still love it!

Baby sits up by herself, kind of freaky.

Our VBS this year was NYC themed. We had a cab that "crashed" through one of our walls. This picture may be too dark to tell but it looked really cool!

This must be what I look like when I feed Hunter.

Before Daddy left for deployment:

Hunter loves sweet potato fries! And with good reason!

Bri was outside with Stephen. Hunter spotted her and wanted to communicate via tapping on the windows.

Loving on one of his birthday toys!

I started bathing them together a couple of months ago. They love it and it's less work for me!

I promise you, he eats at the table as well.

Teaching Hunter to follow in Bri's footsteps and help around the house:

Seriously. We do feed him.

Bored or Creative?

2011-10-08T18:34:00.002-04:00

This is what happens when we are bored and I won't allow the family to turn on the television:

Stephen comes up with some great ideas! :)

Rollercoaster

2011-09-28T17:08:00.002-04:00

Tonight at Chick Fil-A is a "fundraiser" for the preschool that Brianna attends. A percentage of your bill goes toward the preschool. So of course we decided to go on the way to church in order to support the school!

Even better, we bought a discount card from one of our neighbor kids and we get a free waffle cone or brownie with every combo purchase!

Even BETTER, Stephen found a coupon for a free chicken mini! (Yes, we know these are only served at breakfast).

We were disappointed when we realized the coupon expired on September 30.

We were excited when we realized today is only the 28th!

We were disappointed when we read the small print and it's only good at the Fayetteville location.

Alas, these are the ups and downs of life.

Vigilante Review

2011-09-18T08:51:00.002-04:00

Since I am a big fan of thriller/action novels, I wanted to review that type of book from Bethany House Publishers. I chose "Vigilante" by Robin Parrish to review.

In this book, Nolan Gray is the world's greatest soldier. After years of being in the service, and receiving some absolutely horrific scars (emotionally and physically) in wars, he comes up with a plan to make the world a better place to live. But he is going to have to die in order for this to happen.

He dies - according to all news reports. But really, he has enlisted the help of some incredible friends who basically turn him into a modern-day superhero. Literally, he swings along the buildings of New York City, saving people's lives and attempting to wipe out mob crimes.

This book is definitely thrilling. I didn't understand some of the military aspects, and some of the technological aspects of making his "costume", but the book is still a page-turner. I wanted to keep reading to see what happened next! One of the things I really liked about this book is how human the main character was. So many times, with Christian fiction, the characters are so darn close to perfect. Nolan Gray struggled with morals and made horrible decisions just like any normal person. He made impulsive decisions that even cost people their lives. But all the characters in this book were very likeable.

I would definitely recommend this book to others - in fact, my husband is about to start reading it because of my recommendation to him. I would even like to read other books by this author now.

I received this book for free from Bethany House Publishing Group for this review. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.

Homecoming

2011-09-16T21:11:00.003-04:00

In less than 12 hours, Stephen will be home from being deployed.

This morning our preacher Tony emailed me and said, "Your man is almost home - are you excited?"

Am I excited?

I'm so excited that I cleared my entire schedule after Monday just so I could prepare for him coming home. Now, I didn't do anything special (in fact, the only thing special I did was buy him Swiss Cake rolls from the dollar store and bake cookies tonight) but I just wanted a week to chill out and relax before he got home.

This totally screwed me.

Turns out I need to be busy. I need to have things going on every day. Otherwise, I have NO CLUE what day it is or what I am supposed to be doing! That has to be the explanation for:

Wednesday - forgetting a gym appointment. Actually I'm pretty sure I thought that appointment was last week. Anyway, it never made it onto my calendar.

Thursday - Let me just tell you about my grocery store experience on Thursday. Anyone with kids (especially small kids) knows it is pretty tough to get to the store when they're all in a good mood. Especially younger ones because you want them to be full, diaper changed, not sleepy, etc. and for even just two to be on that schedule at the same time is very difficult. So I raced over to Harris Teeter to do a round of triple coupon shopping. I guess I misjudged one of those things because Hunter was starting to get fussy after about 12 coupons (there's a limit of 20). I figured it wasn't worth him getting totally worked up and booked it over to the self-checkout since I hardly had any items (and remember this experience on Wednesday???). Well of course as soon as we stepped up to the lane, Bri started saying she had to go to the bathroom. Visions of puddles on the floor of Harris Teeter filled my head, so I apologized to the cashier, left my cart there, and took her to the bathroom. Now, please note, this is not just going to the bathroom. Oh, no. This is an entire state of events. Now that she can do everything by herself, she does it... very... slowly. Why close the bathroom door once and lock it if you can do it three times? Because how cool is it that I can lock the bathroom door by myself!)(%&*@#(*%&@#)(%. When you're on the toilet, why not just sing, swing your legs, and continuously glance between your legs (why?) but please, only do this when we're in a hurry. Not sitting at home with nothing going on. Anyway, so ten minutes later we get our cart, get to a lane... my money is in the car. Okay, swing the cart back over to the cashier and tell her I'll be right back. Well, of course, like the bathroom, just walking takes forever with Bri. She is constantly distracted and talking to everyone who walks by. We get to the car, get my money, okay, let's go back inside. Get the shopping cart again, go back to a lane, look into the cart.... um, where are my coupons?

My coupons are in the car, where I laid them down so I could get my money.

Cart goes BACK over to the cashier, I stick both kids in a shopping cart this time so I can fly out to the car, at this point I'm just laughing because this is the worst shopping trip ever!

I mean, really, who does stuff like that? Yes, I finally got all my stuff. And didn't forget anything as I was leaving either! Hah!

Friday - Okay, this one is just as good as the shopping trip yesterday. Hunter usually wakes up around 6:15 and eats, then goes back to bed around 6:40 or so, so I sleep until Bri wakes up which is pretty consistently 7:15. I never set an alarm because we never need to leave the house before about 8:30.

This morning, as I went upstairs to get Bri, the only thing on my mind was thinking that she had slept until a little after 8:00 and it felt so good! We didn't have anything to do until a gym appointment at 11:00. So I actually sat down with her to watch her morning episode of Mickey Mouse. We cuddled under a blanket because it was FREEZING this morning and it was so cozy! After the episode, I made her a waffle and started cooking pancakes for myself. Halfway through the first pancake, I glanced at the clock and thought, "Wow, it's 9:00 and Hunter's still asleep. He must have been really tired!" 9:00. Hmm... 9:00. Fridays at 9:00.

Brianna has preschool at 9:00.

They lock the doors at 9:15 (for safety reasons) so I called her director and told her what had happened. I got dressed, stopped breakfast, got both kids awake (Hunter) and dressed (Bri) in about 8 minutes. We drove as fast as possible without really speeding (knowing that that would only slow us down more!) and of course, hit a license check about 2 miles from the school. AARGGHH! Anyway, she just went straight to chapel which she had no problem with, but I mean, what in the world? My brain has just absolutely turned to mush.

I just realized.. oh, please God, don't let me forget to go get Stephen tomorrow.

Never the Bride Review

2011-09-13T09:55:00.002-04:00

I chose to review the book "Never the Bride" from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group because it sounded a little sassy and fun, and I wanted a good new fiction author in my life. It turns out that Cheryl McKay and Rene Gutteridge chose to adapt this book from a screenplay... the opposite of what usually happens. Of course, you can't judge the book solely on that.

The story isn't that great. It's about a girl who is fixated on marriage and finding her soulmate, to the point that she's filled up journals and journals of possible marriage proposals. God actually comes to her in the flesh to assist her in writing her own personal love story, and to me, that was when the story turned from corny and annoying to a tiny bit sacrilegious and annoying. Maybe sacrilegious is too strong a word, but I was really turned off at the way the character spoke to God in this story. In my opinion, we should be able to talk to God about anything and everything, and even tell him when we are angry with him, and so forth, but I didn't appreciate when the character was flirting with God because he was hot, and other things like that happened.

I did like that the story's phrases and communication between characters were modern and not too cheesy or cliche. So you may like this book should you choose to read it. At least it was an easy read, but overall I was disappointed in it.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.

Bri - Gumball Machine

2011-09-12T11:10:00.000-04:00

This is the first artwork they've sent home from preschool in Brianna's bookbag. By the way, you should see her walk out of her classroom with MY gym bookbag on her shoulders... it is three times bigger than she is but she proudly wears it! I totally wish I would remember my camera one day. She's probably the only kid whose mom is too cheap to buy a brand new bookbag just so it can be the right size!!

Anyway, this is her gumball machine. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

#99 - Participate in Operation Beautiful

2011-09-11T07:00:00.000-04:00

I have wanted to participate in Operation Beautiful for a long time. The mission of Operation Beautiful is to end negative self-talk. I feel really strongly about this, particularly because I hear so many females that say negative things about themselves and to me, the things they say are just ludicrous. In college I was very strongly involved in our women's group on campus, and we did stuff to reach out to other females all the time. Our society and our world seems to have turned beauty into such a small box, such an unattainable thing, and I can't stand that people or media can make ME feel bad about myself, or make my sisters feel bad about themselves, or make my gorgeous girls in youth group feel bad about themselves. It just makes me sick that sometimes I choose how I feel about myself based on how other people look.

Yesterday at church two friends and I hosted a girls get-together for 6th-12th grade girls. We wanted to talk about stuff that was important to them, but revolve it around self-image, self-respect, etc. So obviously this was the perfect opportunity to do Operation Beautiful!!

"God made you special and he loves you very much!" (from Veggietales)

No putting yourself down!

"Your worth is bigger than your weight"

"You are beautiful... just the way you are!"

"You are beautiful. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise."

"Wishing you were someone else is wasting the person you are"

www.operationbeautiful.com

Me and Cindy loved looking at them so much we decided to leave them up for church tomorrow. And also decided we need to do more positive talk like this around church!

Life

2011-09-10T12:03:00.000-04:00

I am packing the truck with last-minute things for a Fed By Faith delivery and I hear Brianna in the background. She puts her baby Troll doll on the slide with a blanket and says, "Here you go baby Troll. Wanna go preschool? It's fuuuun. See? Here's everybody. Otay. I'll be back."

Found out that both of the kids like turkey hot dogs. That's good considering the fact I have a load of them in the freezer!

Bri is changing her bear's diaper. I see her run to get a diaper and a paper towel. Then she lays down the bear, wipes him very gently with the paper towel, and says, "Otaaay... one second. Almost done, otay? Gooooood."

We have lived around the corner from these same neighbors for the past four years or so, but we've never met them. Their house is situated so that every time we leave the neighborhood we have to drive past them. We watched them get pregnant and we've watched their son (now 3) grow up... all without having officially meeting them. Very strange! Anyway, as we were walking past their house tonight I heard a little voice yelling at us - "Hey!! Hey!!" We waved to the little boy through the window. Then he said, "Take care of your baby!" Haha! His mom Nicole and he came out of the house because he wanted to come out and see Brianna. They are just about 8 months apart, so they had a ball. They raced up and down the road while Nicole and I talked, they piled pinestraw on another neighbor's driveway, they talked in some toddler language... it was really cute. Nicole was saying that they never get to have play dates with other people so she'd like to get together sometime. That'd be nice - there's really no other people our age in our neighborhood.

Tonight Bri was going to the bathroom when she lifted up one butt cheek and put it back down and said, "My butt is stuck." Uhhhh... not sure how to respond to that.

Waffle Snobs

2011-09-08T08:57:00.003-04:00

Ever since I started making homemade waffles, I didn't even realize it but I was turning our family into waffle snobs! Every couple of weeks I make a huge batch of waffles to freeze and we probably eat them five times a week. Seriously, they are so good.

But this morning I noticed in the pantry that we had waffle mix that was opened and only had a little bit left in the box. So I made those instead.

Brianna took one bite and said, "No like. I'm full." I tasted them too and honestly, they just didn't taste that good. I'm not sure if it was the brand or what, but I wonder if we are just waffle snobs now. The recipe I use is so basic and delicious, I wonder if it's like when you cut down on your salt and then french fries from a restaurant taste way oversalted. Know what I mean?

Anyway, just an observation.

Milestones

2011-09-05T08:26:00.000-04:00

A couple of milestones happened yesterday that are not generally noted like the "big" ones (walking, crawling, etc.)

I was feeding Hunter breakfast yesterday morning in his high chair. He finished his bowl of peaches so I went into the kitchen, put more in his bowl (took maybe 4-5 seconds) and heated them for 13 seconds. I walked back in the dining room to find Hunter on the floor. On the other side of the room. Playing with a toy and squealing with delight.

I seriously almost peed in my pants.

How in the WORLD did that just happen!?!? P.S. Brianna was using the bathroom at the time, so she does have an alibi!

Then, before church, I was giving Bri dinner and Hunter crawled over to where we were in the dining room, stood right up at Bri's chair, and single-handedly took off his diaper. Gave me the biggest smile in the world and scampered off. That little stinker. I thought I still had a few months before he figured out how easily those cloth diapers come off....

Worry and Anxiety

2011-09-04T22:48:00.002-04:00

I am not really a worrier. I think most people would say I take after my dad - I am a glass half-full, basically optimistic person. There may be times I rant to my friends or complain about a situation or have concern over a family member, but I don't really have the tendency to dwell on things, stew over things, and so forth. My dad has always taught me when there is a situation, consider all the outcomes. What is the worst case possibility? How would you handle that? When you are prepared for even the worst case scenario, at least you can still be prepared, and hopefully you have faith and emotional support to get you through. And most of the time the worst case scenario never happens.

But boy, do I know people close to me and acquaintances who struggle with worry and anxiety. This is for you.

Excerpts taken from "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World" by JoAnna Weaver.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 Signs of a Big Worrier

1) You find you spend much more time in useless, nonconstructive worry than other people you know.
2) People around you comment on how much of a worrier you are.
3) You feel that it is bad luck or tempting fate not to worry.
4) Worry interferes with your work - you miss opportunities, fail to make decisions, perform at lower than optimal level.
5) Worry interferes with your close relationships - your spouse and/or friends sometimes complain that your worrying is a drain on their energy and patience.
6) You know that many of your worries are unrealistic or exaggerated, yet you cannot seem to control them.
7) Sometimes you feel overwhelmed by worry and even experience physical symptoms such as rapid heart rate, rapid breathing, shortness of breath, sweating, dizziness, or trembling.
8) You feel a chronic need for reassurance even when everything is fine.
9) You feel an exaggerated fear of certain situations that other people seem to handle with little difficulty.
10) Your parents or grandparents were known as great worriers, or they suffered from an anxiety disorder.

What We Worry About
40% are about things that will never happen.
30% are about he past - which can't be changed.
12% are about criticism by others, mostly untrue.
10% are about health, which gets worse with stress.
8% are about real problems that can be solved.

Concern vs. Worry

Concern... involves a legitimate threat
Worry... is often unfounded

Concern... is specific (one thing)
Worry... Is generalized (spreads to many things)

Concern... Addresses the problem
Worry... Obsesses about the problem

Concern... Solves problems
Worry... Creates more problems

Concern... Looks to God for the answer
Worry... Looks to self or other people for answers

Top Ten Ways to Tame Your Worry Habit
10. Separate toxic worry from genuine concern. Determine if you can do anything about your situation. If so, sketch a plan to handle it.
9. Don't worry alone. Share your concerns with a friend or counselor. You may receive helpful advice. Talking your fears out with someone often reveals solutions that were invisible before.
8. Take care of your physical body. Regular exercise and adequate rest can defuse a lot of worry. When our bodies are healthy, our minds can handle stress better and react more appropriately.
7. Do what is right. A guilty conscience can cause more anxiety than a world of problems. Do your best to live above reproach. Take care of mistakes quickly by confessing and seeking forgiveness.
6. Look on the bright side. Consciously focus on what is good around you. Don't let yourself speak negatively, even about yourself.
5. Control your imagination. Be realistic about the problems you face. Try to live in the "here and now" not in the "what might be".
4. Prepare for the unexpected. Put aside a cash reserve and take sensible measures so you'll be ready if difficulties arise.
3. Trust God. Keep reminding yourself to put God in your equation. Then, when fear knocks, you can send faith to answer the door.
2. Meditate on God's promises. Scripture has the power to transform our minds. Look for scriptures that deal with your particular areas of anxiety. Answer life's difficulties with God's Word.
1. Pray! "Oh what peace we often forfeit,/O what needless pain we bear,/All because we do not carry/everything to God in prayer".

Talk WITH The Hand

2011-09-04T00:58:00.002-04:00

You know that old saying, "Talk to the hand!" Well, Brianna takes a different approach to that phrase and lives "Talk WITH the hand!" This video is just another day several weeks ago when we were doing another tower of blocks, and she wanted to do animals again (we do do other categories, such as food, things, colors, etc... I promise!) But the reason this video is different from the last one I posted is because there are so many of her quirks in this video:

Around 10 seconds, you see her put her hand up to say, "No, no tower, just animals." She also puts her hand up like that when I'm following too closely behind her on the stairs. She'll turn around, put her hand up, and say, "Stop, Mommy. Stay there." She'll go up a couple of stairs and say, "Okay, go Mommy!" Then you can see her using her hand to really gesture and make her point!!
Around 45 seconds you see her "eat" the grapes that are on the block. She then connects that to her memory of eating grapes at Oma's house the last time we were there. This video was taken only about a week or so after we last saw Oma, so she doesn't have a miracle memory or anything. But I love the hand gestures at this point as well when she's discussing the grapes at Oma's house.
Around 1:50 you see the beginning of a long cycle... her finger is covering up the animal on the block and I am constantly trying to get her to see it, she's constantly moving the block and still covering it up with her finger, and seeing one picture over and over - "Fiddle Dee Dee" (which is a Kindermusik song) - the fiddle.
Around 3:04 she connects the picture of the cat to her memory of seeing Kitty Cat at my parents' house.
Camera is full. Cuts off mid-tower. Sad face.

Bri knows a lot of her numbers by sight, and she consistently knows the letters "A", "B", and "C" by sight; sometimes "D", but I've not been working with her on any of that in particular, it's just stuff she's picked up from puzzles and books we have. But the book fanatic inside of me was a little giddy tonight when we started reading a book and she began trying to spell the words!

The book is actually a counting book, and to me this is so interesting the way a child's brain works. She pointed at the number 1 and said, "One!" Then she saw the word "one" next to it and pointed to each letter. "Circle... (mumble)... (mumble)" I recognized that she was trying to spell it out and I got so excited and started smooching on her and everything which is totally unacceptable to her.

Then she did the number two. First she said, "Two!" Then she said, "T... (mumble)... circle!" Haha! But I was a little surprised that she knew the letter T. So the next one, she said, "Three! T... what's that?" "H." "H.... what's that?" "R." "R... what's that?" "E." "E....what's that?" I said, "Brianna, you just said that one! What is it?" ".... E!"

Distracted as she is, when she saw the number four she got very excited for some reason and had to go through the entire book and point out every four that she saw.

Also, tonight I heard her sing the entire alphabet song without missing any letters for the first time. Parents of young children, when things like that happen, doesn't it make you wonder just how long they've known these things in their head but weren't putting it forth vocally?

And an update on preschool... so far, so good! There were less tears on Wednesday and even less on Friday. In fact, I'm pretty sure she spent some of Friday consoling another child in class - Noah - who she talked about all. day. long. "Noah cried. Wanted Mommy!" I heard that dozens of times on Friday! My favorite part of the morning is going to pick her up, and she always takes my hand when we're walking to the car (which is a rare occasion, for her to want to hold my hand), and I just say, "What did you do today?" and she just goes off. She talks about music, she talks about singing, about sliding, playing outside, snack, and especially, she always says, "No cry! Big girl!" I have tried telling her that big girls can cry too, that it's okay, but she assures me, "No cry!" She has told me they're learning about the circle as a shape, and the color red, which is correct, as the teacher sent out an email to that effect the evening of Open House.

That's enough for now!

6 Years and Counting

2011-09-03T21:37:00.000-04:00

Today is a very special day for two main reasons... it is my beautiful sister's birthday and it's also mine and Stephen's anniversary! This year marks six years and boy, is it getting better every year! This anniversary will be a little different from years past - we probably won't do anything at all to celebrate - but I definitely feel like we are closer and more in love than ever! I'm very thankful for my sister and my husband, so today is definitely a beautiful day to me!

Anniversary post 2010 - look at our cute high school picture!
Anniversary post 2009 - first anniversary trip with a baby!
Anniversary post 2008 - anniversary trip to UFC and announcing that we are pregnant!
Anniversary post 2007 - best anniversary trip EVER to Pennsylvania!

For your viewing pleasure...

Oh snap! First vacation together when we were 16 and such hotties!

Ooh yeah, prom '99 baby!

On to college life...

Woo-wee! Look at that smooch!

I love you babe!!

This Really Hit Me

2011-09-03T09:59:00.000-04:00

I'm reading this great book right now by JoAnna Weaver, called "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World." Easy read, great message. And boy, is it hitting me smack in between the eyes. I know this will impact some of you, and I know someone in particular it will hit (Cindy) because we are always having these discussions about doing more and MORE and MORE!!! and unfortunately it just isn't feasible for us. I know tons of people feel like that, and that's why I want to post this story. For you.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The story is told of a man who met God in a lovely valley one day. "How are you this morning?" God asked the fellow. "I'm fine, thank you," the man replied. "Is there anything I can do for you today?" "Yes, there is," God said. "I have a wagon with three stones in it, and I need someone to pull it up the hill for me. Are you willing?" "Yes, I'd love to do something for you. Those stones don't look very heavy, and the wagon's in good shape. I'd be happy to do that. Where would you like me to take it?"

God gave the man specific instructions, sketching a map in the dust at the side of the road. "Go through the woods and up the road that winds up the side of the hill. Once you get to the top, just leave the wagon there. Thank you for your willingness to help me today."

"No problem!" the man replied and set off cheerfully. The wagon pulled a bit behind him, but the burden was an easy one. He began to whistle as he walked quickly through the forest. The sun peeked through the trees and warmed his back. What a joy to be able to help the Lord, he though, enjoying the beautiful day.

Just around the third bend, he walked into a small village. People smiled and greeted him. Then, at the last house, a man stopped him and said, "How are you this morning? What a nice wagon you have. Where are you off to?" The man said, "Well, God gave me a job this morning. I'm delivering these three stones to the top of the hill." "My goodness! Can you believe it? I was just praying this morning about how I was going to get this rock I have up to the top of the mountain," the man told him with great excitement. "You don't suppose you could take it up there for me? It would be such an answer to prayer."

The man with the wagon smiled and said, "Of course. I don't suppose God would mind. Just put it behind the other three stones." Then he set off with three stones and a rock rolling behind him.

The wagon seemed a bit heavier. He could feel the jolt of each bump, and the wagon seemed to pull to one side a bit. The man stopped to adjust the load as he sang a hymn of praise, pleased to be helping out a brother as he served God. Then he set off again and soon reached another small village at the side of the road. A good friend lived there and offered him a glass of cider.

"You're going to the top of the hill?" his oldest friend asked. "Yes! I am so excited. Can you imagine God gave me something to do!"

"Hey!" said his friend. "I need this bag of pebbles taken up. I've been so worried that it might not get taken care of since I haven't any time to do it myself. But you could fit it in right between the three stones here in the middle." With that, he placed his burden in the wagon.

"Shouldn't be a problem," the man said. "I think I can handle it." He finished the cider, then stood up and brushed his hands on his overalls before gripping the handle of the wagon. He waved good-bye and began to pull the wagon back onto the road.

The wagon was definitely tugging on his arm now, but it wasn't uncomfortable. As he started up the incline, he began to feel the weight of the three stones, the rock, and the pebbles. Still, it felt good to help a friend. Surely God would be proud of how energetic and helpful he'd been. One little stop followed another, and the wagon grew fuller and fuller. The sun was hot above the man pulling it, and his shoulders ached with the strain. The songs of praise and thanksgiving that had filled his heart had long since left his lips as resentment began to build inside. Surely this wasn't what he had signed up for that morning. God had given him a burden heavier than he could bear.

The wagon felt huge and awkward as it lumbered and swayed over the ruts in the road. Frustrated, the man was beginning to have visions of giving up and letting the wagon roll backward. God was playing a cruel game with him. The wagon lurched, and the load of obligations collided with the back of his legs, leaving bruises. "This is it!" he fumed. "God can't expect me to haul this all the way up the mountain!"

"Oh God," he wailed. "This is too hard for me! I thought you were behind this trip, but I am overcome by the heaviness of it. You'll have to get someone else to do it. I'm just not strong enough."

As he prayed, God came to his side. "Sounds like you're having a hard time. What's the problem?"

"You gave me a job that is too hard for me," the man sobbed. "I'm just not up to it!" God walked over to where the wagon was braced with a stone. "What is this?" He held up the bag of pebbles.

"That belongs to John, my good friend. He didn't have time to bring it up himself. I thought I would help."

"And this?" God tumbled two pieces of shale over the side of the wagon as the man tried to explain.

God continued to unload the wagon, removing both light and heavy items. They dropped to the ground, the dust swirling up around them. The man who had hoped to help God grew silent. "If you will be content to let others take their own burdens," God told him, "I will help you with your task."

"But I promised I would help! I can't leave these things lying here!"

"Let others shoulder their own belongings," God said gently. "I know you were trying to help, but when you are weighted down with all of these cares, you cannot do what I have asked of you."

The man jumped to his feet, suddenly realizing the freedom God was offering. "You mean I only have to take the three stones after all?" he asked.

"That is what I asked you to do." God smiled. "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light. I will never ask you to carry more than you can bear."

"I can do that!" said the man, grinning from ear to ear. He grabbed the wagon handle and set off once again, leaving the rest of the burdens beside the road. The wagon still lurched and jolted lightly, but he hardly noticed.

A new song filled his lips, and he noticed a fragrant breeze wafting over the path. With great joy he reached the top of the hill. It had been a wonderful day, for he had done what the Lord asked.

Confusion

2011-09-01T10:59:00.001-04:00

Some kids just have confusion in their lives from the very beginning. This is certainly the case with Brianna. I'm sure Hunter will be involved shortly.

So what do you do when you have:

A favorite cousin who goes to Auburn?

An aunt who went to the University of Alabama?

A Mommy who loves UNC...

...but graduated from Appalachian State University?

And a Daddy who is an NC State fan?

Not sure what path in life Brianna will choose yet... but I guess I will be proud of her no matter what team she decides to root for!