Wed and Thur

Wednesday's walk with God:

God is teaching me to trust in Him more and not worry so much. I have been feeling anxious quite a bit lately between J looking for a new job (keep praying! His contract ends at the end of the month....) and Sweet T challenging everything. Plus, I have started worrying about the decisions my kids will (or wont) make as they get older. The fact that I can't make all of their choices is scary. I will have no way of forcing them to do the right things and believe in the Truth of God's Word. T is only 2, L is only 7 months, and I'm already worried about this to the point where it keeps me up at night. Well, it was keeping me up. I shared my feelings with some close friends, and poor J was woken up to talk about it several times, but I'm finally feeling better. God teaches us not to worry about tomorrow. He has my whole life, and that of my children, planned out. He loves my children even more than I do! It's my job to do the best I can, to pray pray pray for my babies, and trust God to fill in where I fall short. He tells us in His Word that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old, he will not depart from it. I have seen God keep this promise in my own family (extended family). I am learning to just let go, and let God!

Thoroughly clean Thursday:
Big. Huge. FAIL! As I said earlier in the week, I've lost my motivation again. But so far this week, I've been doing somewhat better. T and I try to make sure the living room is cleaned up before J gets home from work. J even said how much he has appreciated it :) Yay for making a happy hubby! A fun project that I've been working on is our cloth diaper storage area. I change 95% of the diapers in our living room, which is the room you walk into when you enter our home. Up until a week ago, I tried to hide all of the diapers next to a couch, but it really looked bad. I started researching ideas but couldn't find anything that would work for us. Then I went to Target and saw an ottoman thing that opened up and has a large area for storage. I showed J and we decided to give it a try. Our living room is pretty small and we want the boys to have as much room as possible to play, especially since L loves tummy time now, so our diaper storage ottoman is still next to the couch, but looks a thousand times better! I currently have a small basket in there with wipes and rash cream, a large shoe box to hold all of our inserts, then two other open areas for the fitteds and the covers. I'm a BIG fan :) I would post a pic of it, but I don't have one right now. I'll see if I can get one together soon. And bonus points: it looks good, it's cushioned, and T can climb all over it (although we're discouraging that one...)

Tasty Tuesday: Down-Home Chicken and Noodles

Oh yeah, another crock pot recipe. What can I say? I love my crock pot :) It's so much easier to just toss things in there and let them cook all day rather than to try to prepare everything right before dinner. This meal was good. I will definitely make it again. I wouldn't say it's my all time favorite, though. J gave it a 7 and I'd probably give it a 7 too. It's from the Super Fast Slow Cooking cook book. Enjoy :)

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
salt and pepper to tast
2 10-3/4 oz cans cream of chicken soup
14-1/2 oz can chicken broth
16 oz pkg wide egg noodles, cooked

Place chicken in a slow cooker; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Top with both cans of soup. Cover and cook on low setting for 6 hours, or until chicken falls apart. Remove chicken from slow cooker and shred. Return chicken to slower cooker; add broth and cooked noodles. Mix well. Cover and cook on low setting for an additional 30 minutes, or until heated through. Serves 6

Time to get things back in order!

Wow it's been a while since I've actually blogged. I seemed to lose all motivation for almost all of my goals from the NY. After a discussion with my hubby, I realized that I really have been slacking. I feel like I'm entitled to get a break. The kids have kept me so busy lately and when (or rather, IF) they sleep at the same time, I just want a little break! I NEED a little break! But then J comes home from work, already stressed out from the changes being made there, to a frazzled wife, a messy house, and more work for him to do to keep us above water. As I said last time I blogged, T has been... challenging. L is moving more and more and becoming harder to keep out of trouble too. T is also showing some jealousy. Don't get me wrong, he still adores his brother, but he doesn't always want L to be near him. He definitely doesn't want L touching his toys! It's been... well, challenging is the only word I can think of to describe our current state :) Life is slooooowly starting to settle down into our routine, though. FINALLY! My Sweet T is making more and more appereances and this "other" T is leaving. He is still showing jealousy, but I think we can help him out now that we realize that's the problem. I asked him out on a date today. I'm not sure what we'll do, especially with J on call again. Maybe ice cream? Whatever we do, I want it to be special and super fun. I'd rather go somewhere that we can run and play together, but it just wont work out with J being on call and the weather. Little L is not so little anymore. He moved to his own room two nights ago. Yeah, he's 7 months and just now moving out of our room, lol. But I liked having him there. Even at 7 months, it was hard on me. He is doing fine, even seems to enjoy his new crib (he's been napping in there, so it's not completely new to him). He cut one of his front, bottom teeth. That makes me sad too. Why do babies have to grow up SO fast??? I like having a tiny guy! He's sitting up more now too. He's into everything! It's fun, but definitely makes my job harder. He's a cutie though. Both boys are. Even though T challenges me on just about everything, I still think he's amazing and wonderful :)
The house has gone to the pigs (not sure if that's the correct phrase or not, but it seems to fit, ha!). Where did all of this stuff come from? Where did my motivation to clean it go? I feel completely overwhelmed and disorganized, but I just don't know HOW to organize it. I wish I could just hire someone to come do it for me. I know that's out of the question, but I need to figure out something, some way to get a handle on things. I'd really like to just get rid of stuff, but everything has value to me. Even "junk" has sentimental value. You may very well see me on Hoarders some day. Ok, I'm kidding, it's far from that bad. But I am sure if I don't get a handle on things, it could come close. It's so frustrating.
Cooking has been going well, most days. We have been going out to eat more than we did back in January, but we eat at home waaay more than last year. I actually enjoy cooking now, at least most days I do. I'm still not very good at it, but I am proud of the progress I've made. We are finding a decent amount of meals that we like and for the first time ever, we have no repeat meals for the month! Yes, I do plan out our meals for the whole month. I have to admit though, that we go out with my parents once a week, my sister cooks for us once a week, and we have a leftover day once a week. We also have a "grill night" now that it's getting warmer, a "crock pot night" and a "new recipe night" which is somethings the crock pot or the grill meal. I have found that doing things this way helps me a lot!
Kids are awake, hubby is home, and we're all getting hungry, so this is as much of an update as you get. I'm really trying to get back into the swing of things and keeping this blog helps me to be accountable, so if you don't see an entry for a while, get on my case :) Tell me to get my act together.

Crazy Life

I know I said that I was going to try to blog more often and obviously that hasn't happened. Life has just been CRAZY over the past few weeks and honestly, like a lot of the goals I set at the beginning of the year, the blog fell to the wayside. I'm back... at least for today... but I'm not going to do a normal post. Instead, I feel like this would be a good time to update everyone on some of the things going on and to ASK FOR PRAYER!

* J is job searching. Again. His company keeps losing the contracts that he works on. They want to keep him but it's still a stressful time for us. He has one possible offer. Well, he has the offer, but the company doesn't have the contract yet. They find out in a few weeks if they got it or not, and if they get it (80% sure they will), he has a job. A wonderful job! One that he will enjoy, get a pay raise, and set us up for long term goals (like our eventual move to somewhere WARMER!).
* T is in the middle of the terrible twos, and it certainly is TERRIBLE! Everything, and I mean everything is a challenge! J and I need prayers to help us be kind, loving and WISE parents! We are really trying to set an example of a Godly lifestyle and we're trying to use self control, but we're worn out and tired of the constant battles.
* Both kids have been sick for ages. Prayer for their healing and that J and I stay healthy.
* I'm trying to start a cake business. I want to do it all the right way, but I do not have a business mind and I definitely don't understand the legal stuff. I just want to decorate cakes! So again, I need wisdom and guidance.
* Along with a new attitude, T has become even more of a dare devil. He's never been afraid of heights or other dangerous things. It's become a major issue now that he is more coordinated and capable of getting into/onto things. In the past week, he's pulled down his huge dresser from climbing on it (if I hadn't already believed in angels, that would have been enough to convince me! He landed to the side of it instead of getting crushed under it! Bad baby proofing on our end and we now have his dresser anchored! Learn from my mistake and anchor your furniture!!!). He has figured out how to open the front door and storm door, even with ALL locks on. He climbs over the safety gates at the top of the stairs. AND he has been climbing his window, which is two and a half stories up. We are now that family with gates in our windows :( But at least he's safe. We are frantically trying to figure out where else we've forgotten to baby proof before he really does hurt himself. Anyway, pray for his safety... and more wisdom for J and me!
* Since we're talking about T so much, I have one more to add to his list of prayer requests. I recently found some strange bruises on his back, near his tushy. The doctor thinks some are from his car seat and some are from his diapers, but she was extremely concerned and wanted us back in, in a month. I called the car seat makers and the diaper company. Both are working on fixing the problems and I'm grateful for that! We got a brand new car seat for free and already we've seen a big improvement! I also started buying new diapers (even though the brand we used said they would send us a new product that they think will fix the problem, I didn't want to wait that long. I would rather fix the problem now!). He was in last week for his cold/diarrhea problem and the dr was really happy with how well his back looked. Of course, as soon as I got home I found another bruise higher up on his back. Pray that it's still just from something random and not something serious.
* Last but not least, pray for my attitude. I am exhausted and drained which makes me cranky and mean. I shouldn't use that as an excuse, but I think we all get that way in situations like these. I need to become the nice and loving wife and mother that God commands of me. I need to be more patient. I need to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. I need to put others first. I also want to get back my motivation to be a good house keeper and cook.

Reading over this, I see that my issues are nothing compared to what many people go through. I shouldn't complain about so much, and I definitely shouldn't stress out so much. But I am. I'm going to try to get back into the swing of things and continue working toward my goals listed in my very first blog post, it's just taking me a little time to get back on track.

PS. While you're praying, pray for my sister and her boyfriend! Her man is getting deployed... tomorrow...4 months early. He will be gone for 11 months without a break in the middle. He will have little contact with her. My sister is a strong girl! God created her with a personality that is PERFECT for this life style, but it's still hard, as I'm sure you could imagine. She's absolutely amazing but she still has to spend close to a year away from the man she loves.

Still alive :)

It's been over a week since I've blogged, so I just wanted to give a QUICK update! I'm still here, just super busy! Starting a cake business and taking care of two precious babies is hard work! I'm hoping to write a real blog post tonight. So for now, I gotta keep running! No time to sit and type :) See ya!

Tasty Tuesday: Cola Roast

Another crock pot meal today :) I just love my crock pot! It makes cooking so easy. And this recipe, well, it couldn't get any easier than this!!!

3 lb beef pot roast
1.35 oz pkg onion soup mix
2 12 oz cans cola

Place roast in slow cooker; sprinkle with soup mix. Pour cola over top. Cover and cook on low setting for 7-8 hours. Yep, that's it! Three ingredients. It's delicious too!!! Hubs gave it a 7.5 and I would agree. We both thought that it needed a little more flavor, but it is still a meal that we'd like to have again. I just finished eating the leftovers for lunch, and I think I like it even more the second time around! I usually don't like leftovers very much, but I enjoyed this!