So long ago

It has been so long since I posted anything here. For my birthday in September, Chris got me an iphone. Since then, I hardly ever get on my computer. Everything is on my phone. So here is an update on my family.

Grant is almost 8. It is hard to believe he will be 8 in August. He finished 2nd grade this year and really came a long way in his reading. Reading went from his least favorite subject to his most favorite subject. He is playing baseball again this summer. He plays right field. His batting is really improving this year. Grant also loves swimming. Every time we go to the pool, he has a new trick to show me.

Katie Beth is 6. She is my little mommy. She likes to try and take care of everybody! She finished Kindergarten this year and is really doing well in all of her subjects. She can sound short vowel words out and some long vowel words. She took ballet for the first time this year. She loved it. She is our performer. She loves to go swimming too, but it is more for the social contact. Every time we go, she makes a new friend. She may not know or remember their name, but they are her friend.

Seth is 27 months. He is our comedian. He loves to make everyone laugh. He does everything he can to keep up with brother and sister. Everyday his talking is improving. The cutest thing he says is "I didit!" He is so proud when he can figure something out and do it himself. We have been working on reducing the amount of time he sucks on a Bobby (pacifier), but we have not eliminated it. That is our next step. In fact I am going to cut the tips off of them this afternoon. We have also been slowly working on the potty. He was trying to go on the potty, but now he just sits on it. I'm not pushing real hard, but we are getting used to it.

That is what we have been up to lately in our house.

My Bible Time

Ever since my realization that my resolutions are not working because I am not keeping God first, I have been getting up early. And this is what I have decided about getting up early: It is for the birds.

I hate getting up early. The first day I did it, my day went better. I did not get frustrated with the kids. I did not get mad at the kids. We still had things go wrong, like a flood in my laundry room, but I did not get too frustrated with the kids and I had a peace and calm about myself through the day. I was tired though.

The nest day was even harder to get up. I was so tired through the day. I did get a little frustrated, but not as bad. My frustration was more due to being so tired. I have been going to bed earlier, but I am still so tired.

This morning I almost could not get out of bed. I did not get out of bed until after 7:00. Luckily most of my family slept in. Grant did get up, but he is good to leave me alone if I ask him and I have a good reason.

I have started reading the Bible through. My church always encourages us to do this and this year they have provided a devotional to use. So I am reading what the days assignment is and then reading the short devotional. I got started late and have been having to do a couple of days reading everyday. I am almost caught up. Actually if I had gotten up early today I would have had time to read two days today and I would have gotten caught up.

Tomorrow I will try again.

The Crazy Lady

Do you ever have one of those days where you just feel like a crazy lady? This week has been that way for me.

Katie Beth and Seth have not been sleeping well lately. That has made me so tired. I have not been getting much sleep.

I also have been upset with myself over my New Year's resolutions. I am still drinking coke, a smaller amount though. I have not been running the stairs like I thought I would. We have not been eating out, but we are still eating some of the processed food we already had. And I have not spent anytime with God.

Today I received my Homeschool minute email that is from the Old Schoolhouse Magazine. It talked about our priorities for the New Year. They talked about the verse "Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all these things will be added unto you."

It clicked with me. Have I been seeking God first? No, I have not sought God at all. The only reason I have opened my Bible was to work with the kids on their verses. I have not worked on any verses for myself. I picked up a pamphlet at church about reading through the Bible in a year, but I have not even looked at it.

Now it is time for me to get my priorities straight. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven!"

One of Those Days

It has been one of those days at my house. I had such high hopes for today, but I fell flat on my face. I got the kids to bed on time last night. I laid out all of their school work, and I had all of the dishes done last night before I went to bed. Then I could not sleep. Then Katie Beth ended up in our bed. And that was the beginning of it all.

I had a day of Seth getting into make-up, marathon laundry, trying to get the kids to work, and trying to get the house cleaned up.

At the end of the day, I am minus a tube of lipstick and an eyeshadow compact. The kids finished all of their schoolwork. I did not get their read aloud read to them. Almost all of the laundry is washed and folded. The kids did not eat processed food for lunch or dinner. And the house is still a wreck!

I managed to not drink a coke in all of the chaos today. I was about to break down and have one, but I sat down to fold my mountain of laundry and I watched Dr. Oz. He talked about getting rid of sugar and syrups to lose weight. So I never fixed that coke. But I had already eaten a Reeses and I lost count of how many graham crackers I had.

New Year's Resolutions Part 2

My third resolution is to keep a strict budget. Neither Chris or I are accountant minded, therefore at the end of the month we say, "Where did our money go?" So Chris has made out a strict budget and we are going to stick to it.

As part of this we are going to save at least $400 each month. In order to do this I am going to have more meals planned, so there is no stopping on your way home to pick up dinner. This also goes with eating better. We are also switching our cable to Dish network. I am also going to open an Etsy store. I have been making beaded crosses that I am going to sell in the store along with any other crafty thing I come up with. I love to be crafty and this will give me a way to make some money on my crafts.

I have not figured out exactly how I am going to accomplish my last resolution. It is to spend more time with God. I am not a morning person, so getting up before the kids to have a quiet time is really hard. Also as soon as I get up early, Seth gets up. So I have to figure out a better time of the day to accomplish this.

This morning it hit me that I have to put all of this into action now. This is January 2nd and that means it is time to start acting on these. We have some PW Apple Cake in an Iron Skillet leftover from lunch at Chris's parents house. I started to have that for breakfast and then I remembered that now is the time to start cutting out the sugar. If I eat one bite of sugar in the morning I will crave it all day. I also woke up with a sinus headache. I want a coke so bad. It would knock this headache out, but no cokes for me today.

Well here is the recipe for the Apple cake for anyone that wants it. http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/09/apple-cake-in-an-iron-skillet/

New Year's Resolutions

I am either an all or nothing girl. That makes New Year's Resolutions hard for me. I make resolutions and then mess up a couple of days or one day and then give up. I do not usually do resolutions for that reason. I have several things I really want to do this year, so I am going to give resolutions a try again. I am hoping that by listing them out on my blog I will be more accountable. I may even try to do an update each month on how I am doing with each resolution. Most of my resolutions are tied together in some way or another so hopefully listing them out will not be too confusing.

My first resolution is one that everyone has. I really need to lose weight! I never lost all of my weight after I had Seth and it really is starting to bother me. I need to lose about 20 lbs.

What is my plan for this? My first thing is to cut out my daily glass of coke. This is going to be so hard for me. I tried to get off of it before Christmas, but got really stressed out and tired of headaches and after a week I was drinking it again.

My second thing is to cut down on the sugar our family eats. I think as a family we would be so much healthier. We have not had the flue this season, but I am afraid that we are playing with a loaded gun by allowing our kids to eat as much sugar as they do.

And my last thing to do is to cut out or way down on the processed food. This is going to be hard on me with the kids lunches. It is so easy and cheap to fix the kids a box of Aldi Macaroni and Cheese for lunch. Now I will have to plan lunches when I plan our grocery trips. I really do not know what to plan for the kids to eat for lunch. Anyone have any ideas?

My second resolution is to run a 5K. I have always wanted to be a runner, but I never have been. Growing up I was not into sports. I took ballet forever and stayed in shape that way. When I was in college I was a cheerleader and that kept me in shape and before I was married I went aerobics class all the time. Now I can not afford a gym membership and I really need to do some kind of physical activity if I am going to accomplish my first goal.

How am I going to accomplish this? I am not an early riser and I do not like the cold, so I have started running our stairs. My goal is to do this a couple of times a day and keep track of it and run up at least one more time than the day before. If I make up and down 5 times on day one then I want to make it 6 times on day 2.

These are my first two resolutions and tomorrow I am going to post my last two, but now I need a coke and maybe I will run some stairs while I am at it.

Blogging again

I am going to try this again. I really want to blog, but it just seems to be something else to keep up with. With everything else I have to do, it just seems to get left out. But I really want to do it. So as one of my New Year's resolutions, I am going to try and blog again.

I have several other resolutions that I am going to blog about as I start this again, but for today this is the main one I want to focus on. I think blogging is such a good way to document the things we do in our day to day life, but I have never been much of a writer. Even as a child, I would start a diary, but it would not last long. I received good grades in writing in High School and then I went to college. The teacher I had for composition did not like my writing. I could not believe that I received a B in that class. From then on I have doubted my writing. So I second guess everything I write.

In other news, I was so excited tonight. For Christmas I received a gift card from my parents to buy clothes. I went to Kohls tonight and found an 80% off rack. I bought several things and now I have some new clothes and three pairs of jeans instead of 2. All I could think of was,"Thank you God for providing for my wants and need."

Mom's Soup Pot

I have been in a dinner rut. I have had no ideas for dinner and have not been to the store, because I did not know what to buy. Everything that I could think of to cook made me think of winter food. I like lighter food in the summer.

I had finally decided on two meals to cook and had plans to go to the store yesterday. Then my oldest came down with a stomach bug. I did not make it to the store. My husband stopped on his way home and bought some essentials and stuff to make quesadillas. That did not sound good to me either, but everyone else like them and they were happy.

Finally today I went to the store. I have been craving an all vegetable dinner. I also saw a recipe on the Crock Pot lady's website for Cowboy beans. And then Pioneer Woman had the best looking potatoes and steak and stuffed tomato on her site today.

Last night when I could not figure out what to cook, I put as my status on facebook that I did not know what was for dinner. I am friends on facebook with a couple of my friends that I grew up withs parents. One of them sent me an email telling me how she used to freeze all of her leftover vegetables and then make a soup out of them.

That reminded me of how my mom talked about her grandmother's soup pot. She said that she kept a big bowl in the refrigerator and put all of the leftovers in it. Then once a week she made soup out of it. I think that was a pretty common practice. Those women of the Great Depression knew how to not let anything go to waste. They made sure everything they bought for food got eaten. How different is that now? We through food away and do not think a thing about it. It bothers me that I am throwing away food that we paid for, but not enough to do anything about it. I try to make my family eat leftovers, but it does not happen very often. Right now there is a almost whole chicken spaghetti sitting in my refrigerator. It was a new recipe and no one liked it. It tried to eat it, but who wants a whole chicken spaghetti? I think if it is still good, I am going to freeze it and then try and use it this winter for a soup.

Tonight for dinner we are going to have butter beans, sauteed squash, corn pudding, fried okra, and fresh tomatoes. We will probably have leftovers tomorrow night and then whatever is left I am going to put in a gallon Ziploc bag and use for soup this winter. My family may get tired of soup!

What I Have Been Doing

For the past week I have been cleaning out bedrooms. I started in my daughter's room. I have been wanting to paint her room, but it was so messy that you could not walk through it. We spent one day cleaning out and organizing all of her stuff. That night when I was giving kisses and hugs, my son asked if we were going to do his room the next day. I think he was a little jealous. He usually has the cleaner room of the two.

So, the next day we spent on his room. I thought his room would be easier, but it was actually harder. He had a bunch of little things that were very hard to classify. When it was done, he was glad.

After I had finished their rooms, my room was the messiest in the house. I tried all week to work on mine, but I had one big problem. The baby. His crib is in our room. I work the best while he is asleep. Finally on Saturday the kids had a birthday party to go to. I put Seth done for his nap in the pack and play in the living room and my wonderful husband took the other two kids to the birthday party and I had uninterrupted cleaning time. I was really embarrassed by how much dog hair was on my carpet and my comforter. I had taken my comforter off of my bed to take to the dry cleaners, but my dogs had decided that it made a good bed. One of our dogs is a Chow/Golden retriever mix and she sheds so bad in the summer. After all of my cleaning I finally took my comforter to the dry cleaners today.

In other news. I finally got all of my curriculum ordered. Today Grant's reading books came in and I am really excited about them. I have switched him to Sonlight for reading, but had to order them off of ebay. It took a lot of patience for me to wait until I found all of the books together and at a price I could afford, but I think this reading will be better for him. Last year we did Abeka reading. I love Abeka, but I think he was bored with it. When I started checking books out of the library for him to read, he started reading better. I think he will do better with reading real books instead of readers.

So, my plan for curriculum this year is ABeka for phonics, language, math, and spelling. Getty Dubay for handwriting. Math- U- See for Katie Beth's math. 100 Easy Lessons for Katie Beth's reading. Sonlight reading 2 for Grant's reading. Sonlight Core K for history. Some lapbooks and experiments in a bag for science.

I am still working on putting together our Bible. Last year I used a devotion book that Grant had and their memory verses from Awanas. This year I bought a book called Polite Moments. It is more of a character training book. I think I am going to focus on a "trait" a week and find verses to go with that "trait". I will write about how this goes when I start putting it together more.

In other other news. Our upstairs air conditioner is out again. This is the third time this summer. I am trying to be thankful in all things. I am trying to look to the positive. I put Seth to bed in his pack and play and I am going to go upstairs and clean bathrooms. I usually put this off for fear of waking him. Since he is not asleep up there, I know I will not wake him.

Off to clean bathrooms!

Seth's First Haircut

I put off getting Seth's hair cut as long as I could. His head was getting so sweaty and we were spending so much time at the baseball fields that I just couldn't postpone it anymore.

We were going to my husband's family reunion and one of his uncles used to be a barber. He always bring his tools because someone always wants a haircut. So Chris (my husband) decided that this would be the best time for a haircut. So after he pried Seth from my arms and I quit kicking and screaming saying, "I do not want my baby to look like a big boy," (Not quite that dramatic, but that was how I felt) Chris and his Uncle Bub got to work and cut off all of my baby's curls.

He looked really cute, but it was hard for me to get use to his new look. I knew it had to be done. I did not have this hard of a time when the other two got haircuts. I do not know what it was about this one, but it was really hard.

I WON!!

I am so excited. I won a $25 gift certificate to the EcoStore. Now I can not decide what I am going to buy. I would really like to try the pure oxygen whitener, but also some shampoo, but also some soap. I think I will have to study their website more to decide. I will let you know what I try and how I like it.

Michelle Duggar

I was so excited to meet Michelle Duggar! I love the way her and Jim Bob show their faith for everyone. They are not afraid of what anyone thinks, but God and I believe God has blessed them for that.

Our homeschool group has monthly meetings for the moms called Renews. A couple of the moms in our group know the Duggar's because they worked on the Duggar's political campaigns. They asked Michelle if she would come and talk to our homeschool group. It was one of the best attended Renews we had ever had.

Michelle was great! She was just like she is on TV. She is very sweet and down to earth. She was very encouraging. Unfortunately only Grandma Duggar and the baby came with her. The rest of the family was in Tennessee helping the Bates family build their house. I would have loved to see in person how all of the kids interact together.

What I learned. The one thing that she said that really struck me was that I do not have the right to sleep. She was talking about how at night the older kids come in her and Jim Bob's room to have talks with them. She said that sometimes the girls will talk until 2 in the morning and that she does not have the right to sleep when it is so important to spend that time guiding her children. It really made me think about all the things that I think I have the right too and how I feel offended when I do not have those things. I am a sinner only saved by grace not by what I do, but by what Jesus has done for me. Since that is true why do I feel I have the right to have all the things I think I need. Only Jesus know what I need and the only thing I need is Jesus.

Oh, and I hate the way I smiled in the picture, but it was the only picture I had of me and Michelle.

Bible reading

I am really behind! I finished up Genesis tonight.

One thing that stood out to me was that Jacob deceived his father and Esau and from then on he was being deceived. It made me wonder what sin I have committed or an committing that will keep coming back to me. My prayer is that God will show me my sins and help me get out of them.

For the rest of the book, I had a lot swirling around in my mind tonight. When I read tonight I was really depressed about some issues in my life. There are some struggles that it seems we can never get out of. I know things can get worse and I do not want anything worse, but I wonder when we can climb out! This may not make any sense to anyone else and I am just rambling, but I need some therapeutic conversation with myself and that is what I am doing.

Target!!

Target opened last week and I finally made it there. I do not know if I can afford to have a Target in our town. I did buy a lot of things that we have been needing, so I was not looking for deals.

I bought shoes for all three kids, birthday present for my nephew, vitamin water, pacifiers and a new pacifier clip, pizza for dinner and I am sure there was more.

I had a gift card and spent $50 after my gift card. I did get a gift card for $5 back for my vitamin water. I am going to have to watch it when I go there!

Where have I Been?

I have been so busy lately that I forgot to blog. What have I been doing?

1. I have been helping to get things ready for a Women's Conference at my church. Angela Thomas is coming to our church to speak. I have not done one of her Bible Studies, but I have heard good things about her.

2. We went camping this weekend. Camping in a cabin! I will blog about that later.

3. I have been trying to implement FlyLady. If you do not know about FlyLady go to her website here. www.FlyLady.net She helps you get rid of CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome). So far I am keeping my sink clean and making my bed. Yesterday I tried to do the weekly home blessing hour, but I can not figure out how to vacuum my whole house in 10 min. Then baby got up from his nap and it was all over.

Well that is what I have been doing in addition to keeping up with 3 kids and homeschooling 2!

busy days

I just realized it is Wednesday night and I have not posted anything this week. What have I been doing?

We have been schooling everyday this week. I think this will be our first full week of schooling. We are starting to see some new things introduced and Number 1 son had his first phonics test of the year. He did great on it.

Another thing I have been doing is Walgreens!! Walgreens has had some great deals this week. Check out MoneySavingMom.com and CommonSensewith Money.com to see all of the deals. I am planning a big trip tomorrow with spending little out of pocket. I will post pictures and detailed explanation of what I have done tomorrow night.

And my last thing that has kept me busy is I am planning a weekend away from my family. There is a group of girls from church that I go scrapbooking with for a weekend twice a year. I will not be totally away from my family. Baby will have to come with me since he is still nursing, but he is such a good baby that I think I will be able to get something done. Another one of the girls has a baby that is a month younger than Seth and he will be coming too.

I am planning on posting a couple of recipes soon. Be sure to come back and check those out.

God is good

This year I was not very excited to start schooling. I think I have mentioned before that we have had a lot going on lately. We had a baby and moved and I was also planning on starting Princess on some schoolwork. I have been just worn out lately and the thought of shipping my kids off to school somewhere has been very appealing.

But then God is always so good to show me why I need to keep on homeschooling. First an email was sent out on the homeschooling email list that I am on. It was a devotional from Crosswalk Homeschool Encouragement. In this email the author talks about how she had lost her joy in her daily activities as a Mom. She kept hearing in her mind that she should put the kids in school and be a career mom. That she was failing at teaching her kids. That she was doomed to failure. Then one day one of her children thanked her for teaching them. It was then that she realized that she had let the enemies voice in her head. She wondered how well things would have been going if she believed that her homeschooling venture was a success.

Another day I was looking through some blogs and I found a link here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh2VFkF7NLo to an interview with Steven Curtis Chapman about the loss of his daughter. From there I watched a music video dedicated to her. These made me think about how short time is with our kids. How I should cherish all of the time I have with them. God has given the desire to homeshool to my husband and I and I should thank him for that added time I have with my kids. The Bible clearly states that children are a blessing. Why would I want to send my blessings to someone else? Why would I let someone else have the blessing of watching their faces light up when they learn something?

So from there I started homeschooling last week. It went better than I could ever imagine. Both kids were excited and enjoyed it. Baby napped while we were working and I had plenty of time with both big kids.

So just as always God is so good to provide the encouragement that is needed just when it is

needed!!

Being a Stay at Home Mom

I recently read a great article on a blog that I love reading. She expressed so many of my thoughts about being a Stay at Home Mom. So many people think it is easy and we do it because that is all we are qualified to do. Or we do it because our husbands make a lot of money and we do not need to work. We do it because we believe with our whole heart that it is what is best for our child!!

Read the article here at Biblical Womanhood: http://www.biblicalwomanhoodonline.com/labels/Mothering.html

Me time

Lately I have been contemplating "me time." I used to have it, but now I do not. Is it that important for a Mom to have me time?

My children used to go to Mother's Day Out at our church 2 days a week from 9:00 - 2:00. I would spend those days running myself to death. I would either run all over town to get all of my errands taken care of or I would clean my house from top to bottom. Then after I picked my kids up I was either so tired I could not stay awake or I did not want to bring the kids home because I did not want them to mess up the house.

Now my oldest is too old for Mother's Day Out and we have started homeschooling and we moved to the other side of town and I would spend 30 minutes taking and picking up kids.

So in order to have "me time" I would have to put my oldest in school and my two others in Mother's Day Out. But what would this mean for my kids. It would mean that my oldest would be in public school. My husband and I would lose all control over what he is taught. We would lose all control over the influences in his life. It would mean that my two oldest children would not spend as much time together and their friendship would probably suffer. It would mean that my baby would grow up not having his loving brother and sister hovering over him all the time. It would also mean that I would have to pay $36 a week for childcare plus the gas it would cost to get to Mother's Day Out.

Is that worth it for "me time." I do not think so. I was recently reading a book called Passionate Housewives Desperate for Christ. It makes the point that as Christian we no longer own our lives or our time. We are bond servants of Christ and my job for Christ right now is to make sure my children grow up learning all they can about Christ all day long.

So for now I will try to focus on the time I get with my kids while they still want to be around me. And not focus on my toenails that desperately need a pedicure or my gray hair that needs to be covered. I will focus on the beautiful smiles I get to see everyday.