After 22 short months

of no monthly friend, I had forgotten how bad PMS can be. I'm glad today is over and am praying tomorrow is much better. Hopefully there will be less tears, less mood swings, less anger, less of me and more of God using me.

In Presidents' at co-op today, Michael wrote a letter to President Obama. This child we have been blessed with is so brilliant. It does not matter at all to him that Mr. Obama is not who we would have chosen to be president. He wrote with so much respect and kindness. It amazed me. We all respect and pray for him now that he is in office, but it was amazing to see that come from a 10 year old. We are so blessed to raise these children.

Annalee said she wants to learn to juggle, after watching a guest juggle at co-op this morning. He had a great message about juggling things in our lives and how God is usually the first thing to be dropped when we are juggling too much. That really spoke to me. God should be the most important thing in my life and it's easy at times to put off reading the Bible or going to church. I needed that reminder.

In Bella news, she took about 9 steps in a row this afternoon! She is getting more and more confident. I LOVE it!

Growing like a weed!

I don't know about you, but I love well baby check ups! Bella had her 1 year appointment this morning. At birth she was 7lbs 12oz or was it 13oz? I don't remember! She was 21.5 inches long. At one year she is 23lbs 12oz and 31.5 inches long. I think my milk agrees with her! She was sweet with the doctor. She's not a huge fan of the nurse, but that's ok. I don't really like her either! So, we got the all clear to start on milk, which we've done and she really doesn't like it. I was reassured that it's fine if she doesn't drink milk, as long as she eats cheese or something with calcium pretty frequently. All in all, it was a great visit!

My kids are cooler than me!

Yesterday morning as I was mouthing the words to the songs and trying not to treadmill dance, I realized my kids are way cooler than I am! I have an mp3 player, but my music stinks! Some of the songs come on and I wonder why in the world I downloaded them! Michael and Annalee's ipods are a different story, though! I have to restrain myself from singing and treadmill dancing. I'd be awfully embarrassed if I tripped or fell off! They've added praise music and pop, just the right stuff to get me moving!!! :) What do you like to listen to when you are working out?

Bella turns 1!!!!!!!!!!

What a sweet, amazing blessing this little girl has been to us. I do not know where the time has gone. It feels like she was just born a month ago. She has been here with us for 12 months today. She has taught me patience, endurance, tolerance and the power of prayer. I have prayed for years, but the power of prayer was always missing. Or, I didn't think I could feel the power. I didn't feel the immediate peace that came from praying to get through the next hour, evening, day.


We'll have her own cake at her party, but for tonight she got a piece. She was checking it out!

MMMM! She was thinking about diving in mouth first, but she restrained herself!

Yummy cake face!

Oh yeah! Let's rub it all in my hair!

My sweet blue eyed girl!


Wave your hands in the air like you don't care!

Opening presents.

Just a sweet picture of my angel!

Playing with a new toy!

Bella decided since it was her birthday that she should at least take one step all alone. So, she took one step a couple of times today. She'd go to her knees after that one step, but one is better than none!

Menu plan Monday

Monday: Cheesy baked potato soup

Tuesday: Taco bake and peas

Wednesday: Pulled pork sandwiches

Thursday: Spaghetti and green beans

Friday: Chicken enchiladas and peas

For more menu ideas visit I'm an Organizing Junkie.

I might say I'm not a morning person...

But it is crazy how much I can get done if I get up early! It was a struggle to get out of my warm bed with the temperature in the low 20s this morning. I told Ernie to reset his alarm, that I wasn't going to the gym. Then I remembered what Michele said about exercising first thing on an empty stomach burns the most calories. With the scale not budging this week, I needed all the help I could get! So, I did get up and go at 5:30.

Bella started saying thank you this week! It is the sweetest thing. It sounded like she said kitty the other day when Bullseye was walking by. We've only heard that once, though. She's going to be 1 next week. I cannot believe she's been here almost a year!

Unexpected gifts

My Mom came by at lunch yesterday with two collages of pictures of me and my brother with our Dad that I did not realize she still had. What an act of kindness that was to put those together for me. Daddy has been gone for half of my life this year. HALF of my life!!! It does not seem possible.

As we are fasting with our church family the next couple of weeks, Joel has asked us to read through the book of John, a chapter a day. As I was reading chapter 2 the other day, where it talks about Tearing down this temple it says

18-19 But the Jews were upset. They asked, "What credentials can you present to justify this?" Jesus answered, "Tear down this Temple and in three days I'll put it back together."
20-22 They were indignant: "It took forty-six years to build this Temple, and you're going to rebuild it in three days?" But Jesus was talking about his body as the Temple. Later, after he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this. They then put two and two together and believed both what was written in Scripture and what Jesus had said.".

I realized while reading these verses that I have years of anger and bitterness in my heart towards my Daddy. My Dad had epilepsy. He had been on medication for as long as I could remember. Not long before he died, he told me that he was reading his Bible one morning and asked God to speak to him and show him what he wanted him to read. He opened up his Bible and read a verse telling him that he was healed. He believed he was healed and stopped taking his medication. He was looking into brain surgery, but refused to take any more medication. He did not believe the medicine was helping, because he was still having seizures. I have been so angry for years, because if he had taken his medication, he might be alive. I knew in the back of my mind that it was God's plan for him to die when he did, but it's easier to place blame than to accept the truth. Now I know that the verse might have meant that my Dad was going to be healed in heaven very soon and not here on earth.

Interesting things He is showing me right now. I'm learning that just because someone doesn't love you the way you want to be loved, doesn't mean they aren't loving you the best they can.

Perfect start to the morning!

I got up early and went to the gym at 5:30 this morning! Not being a morning person AT ALL, I am pretty pleased with myself! It is a little harder than I expected to make this extra time to do something for myself while doing school with the kids. I thought the perfect solution was to go to the gym in the evenings, but the kids really disliked the evening worker in the nursery. So, I'm trying first thing in the morning. I enjoyed getting my workout done and out of the way. I was up before the kids and actually cooked breakfast! Instead of grits or waffles, they got eggs and turkey bacon. Supper(salsa chicken) is in the crockpot. Clothes are washing. Annalee is working on some presidential facts to earn the inaugeration patch for girl scouts. Michael is doing his daily reading. Bella is playing. It has been a perfect morning! Next week we will start our 2nd semester of co-op with the homeschool group. I am very excited about the kids being in classes again. The break has been very nice, but I think it was a little too long!

One week down!

I made it an entire week without a coke! The triggers that normally set me off were overcome with prayer and going to the gym. Chick-fil-a has the BEST coke, in my opinion and I made it through the drive-thru today without getting one! As of today, I have walked 17 miles this week!!! The only day I didn't go to the gym was Tuesday. I did a 4 mile Walk Away the Pounds video at home that day. The weather was nasty and I really didn't want to get the kids out in it. I'm going to try to make it to the gym in the morning. I really want to squeak out 3 more miles for the week. I have had so much more energy since I've been exercising every day! Most days I have had a lot more patience, also.

I am patiently waiting for our shipment of new books. I ordered Horizons Math, Easy Grammar, Learning Language Arts Through Literature and Sequential Spelling. Michele, I wish I'd seen the recommendation for Shurley before I placed the order! I'm going to give Easy Grammar a try. If we don't like it, I'll try Shurley next! I don't know many people that have tried Horizons math, so I'm glad you said you like it! Most of the people in our homeschooling group use Saxon or Math U See. We tried Singapore. It was fine for Michael, but a little difficult for Annalee. I still want to order Spelling Power for Michael. He is a natural speller. I haven't done it yet, though. We'll see how Sequential Spelling works. I thought that might make more sense for Annalee. I hope they will enjoy these more. Right now Annalee is not a fan of math or english at all. She'd rather do Bible, science, social studies, spelling, art, reading and spanish all day every day!

One day at a time...

Today was hard. Not just hard, but insanely HARD. I was tempted many times today to pack the kids in the car and go drive through anywhere for lunch to get a coke. I didn't care if I ate or not, I just wanted a huge coke! A coke IV might have even worked. Tuesday is our busiest day of the week with speech, dancing and sometimes girl scouts. I usually don't eat enough during the day on those days and compensate by drinking several cokes. I beat the temptation.

We had a decent day of school today. I ordered some new books. Michael has finished his math and english for the year, so I ordered 5th grade for him. I ordered a few new things for Annalee, also. I really don't like her english at all, so we're going to try some new things. I am hoping they will enjoy this more. I'm looking forward to getting the order in! I am enjoying being back in a routine with school.

I've walked 8 miles so far this week! It feels wonderful to be active again. The scale is inching down for me, too. I love seeing those numbers fall!

My word for 2009 is...

Persevere. One of the hard lessons I have learned about myself this past year is that I do not like to persevere. When things get tough or stressful, I want to put my head in the sand and totally ignore everything. Whether that be a friendship that is rocky because there are many differences or a family situation that is not the smoothest, I have always thought that it was easier to ignore the problems or differences.

Because I chose not to persevere, I failed to finish college. I failed to lose all of this extra weight 6 years ago on WW. I failed to lose much weight the 4 or 5 other times I've joined WW. I failed to give up coke the many times I have tried, because it got tough.

Starting today I will persevere. I will beat this. I am thankful that the thing I am addicted to is not worse than coke. I will persevere by replacing bad habits with good ones. I will make it one day at a time. With the wonderful group of supportive friends and family I have, I will live up to my potential instead of hiding from my potential.

I have almost 3 days of no coke behind me. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!(Picture Ric Flair saying that!) I felt amazing today. I made it to the gym for a great workout this morning and did not have the horrible mid afternoon slump I usually have. I stayed on program within my point range! If I can do it one day, I can do it everyday!

36 hours and counting....

So far I have made it 36 hours without a coke! If I can get through the next 132 hours without caving, I will be golden! I have had 3 major headaches accompanied by nausea today, but I didn't give in to it. My plan tomorrow is to get out and go to the gym in the morning instead of sitting around and moping because I don't have a coke in my hand. Michael made a comment today that I might be a bear this week and he might need to lock himself in his room so I don't maul him! I need this crutch OUT of my life!

2009 came in with a bang!

We rang in the New Year in a friends garage with about 8 kids setting off some little handheld confetti popping things. We were surrounded by some of our favorite people and could not have asked for a better beginning of what I believe is going to be a marvelous year! 2008 was a year of many hard lessons. I have heard the comment "when God closes one door, he opens a window(or a door)" many times in my life, but this past year He closed one door and flung many doors wide open for me. He showed me that I did not need to lean on a person for understanding and wisdom, I needed to be coming to him. I learned that I am stronger than I thought I was. I am working on forgiveness.

I do have resolutions for this year because I love to make them and try to stick to them. I have failed, but the optimist in me loves to keep trying! Here they are in no particular order.

1. To make time daily to read the Bible and pray more than when my head hits the pillow at night.

2. To read through the Bible in one year.

3. To fast with our church in a couple of weeks. I need to decide what to give up. It needs to be cokes, if I'm going to give up the one thing that my body believes it must have every single day.

4. To be a better wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend.

5. To cook healthier for all of us. I want to make sure we get 5+ fruits and veggies every day.

6. To drink 100oz of water/day.

7. To go to the gym at least 4 days/week.

8. To lose 50lbs.

9. To limit our eating out to once a week. I am horrible about eating out. After being home all day, I want to see other people, even if it's just strangers in a restaurant.

10. To have a family game night at least one night per week.

11. To be more intentional with PE, 5 days a week.

12. To set a better example for the kids about nutrition and exercise.

13. To declutter and organize the house.

14. To get more involved with our church.

15. To give up coke completely. It is an emotional crutch for me. I am stronger than a can of coke.

I hope everyone has a wonderful 2009!