Tears...

My friend Korissa wrote an incredible true story about sharing Christ's love with her neighbors...read it here...

http://www.crispycross.com/

MckMuffin was born!

My bloggy friend and former college classmate, MckMama, has had her fourth baby boy - Stellan! He was born today and is just adorable. All children are such miracles from God, but this little guy was really having a hard time in the womb and there was talk of him not making it...but God had OTHER GLORIOUS PLANS!!! PRAISE TO HIM ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you want to read more about MckMama and her sweet family, her blog is http://www.mycharmingkids.net/

Tonight's Dinner on the Cheap!

Hey there! I'm excited to share with you what we're having for dinner tonight, and it was quite reasonable to put together! Baked chicken and rice with onions and peppers! A few weeks ago I used some coupons from our local grocer for the "buy one get one" whole chickens cut up. SO, I bought 4 of them total, each then costing me only $3.50. Isn't that great? I put them in the freezer and today thawed one out. Now it is cooking in my electric skillet along with some onions & green peppers chopped up, and seasoned with some salt-free Greek seasoning that I like. Then after it is browned, I'm going to combine it with some fast-cooking brown rice that I'm pre-cooking right now, and I'll also put in some "healthy" cream of chicken soup. Mix it all up and bake it probably for an hour or so...YUM!!!!!!! And so reasonable! I think that along with it I'm going to make some carrot-orange juice, and maybe another side vegetable...

Nap time, sweet nap time...

Ah, this time is SO great! Both kiddos are down sleeping and I finally have enough energy to be up while they're asleep, which means that I can do whatever I want or need to do! HALLELUIAH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today, I realized that Little Bug has consistently been calling her baby brother "Little Buzz" for quite awhile. I think that it is sticking, and I think it is adorable. She's got me into calling him that now too! So, I have a Bug and a Buzz - too cute. I'm so grateful for these two kids.

After finally getting out the door at 11:15 am this morning, we headed off to Target for a bit of shopping. Bug got a free kids cookie from the bakery (love that!) and enjoyed most of it thoroughly as she sat in the multiple child seat attached to the shopping cart. (I finally get to claim one of those fun carts now since I have my multiple kids.) That cart is really helpful, by the way. I can pile all kinds of things in and around the extra muliple kid spot on the front, and Bug helps them to stay put. Then, Buzz can sit in his carseat inside the main cart and get lulled to sleep by the rattling of the cart on the sticky store floor. About halfway through our grocery shopping there was great panic - "Mommy, my cookie!" Oh oh, the cookie had fallen to it's great demise, right there on the store floor...and Bug's face was so saddened! I explained, "It's okay honey, that's just what happens when we drop food on the floor. We can't eat it anymore because the floor is dirty, so we'll have to throw it away." Oh well! Such is life, right?

I'm really getting into blogging again, and it's fun. :)

Gday, ya'all.

Organizing Movies

Well, tonight I finally hit the wall and decided that it was HIGH time to organize our movie collection! The movies were somewhat organized before in some nice white boxes that I bought from IKEA, but they were sort of scattered...and the shelves that they were on were really really dusty from MONTHS of neglect. These shelves are ones that I stare at every day when I'm sitting in our family room nursing the baby, and every day I have thought about how much I wanted to get things organized and cleaned in there. See, I really do like to be organized and I always am plotting out ways to organize and things I could organize...it's just that I often have a hard time following through on doing the projects or else I just plain don't have time with a two year old and a four month old. Tonight when we went for a walk in the lovely fall air, I made a resolution that I will try to attack one room or area each day that needs help and work to get it taken care of. So, I feel I succeeded tonight! Also, it was really fun looking through the videos we have to see things that I had forgotten about. Now I'm looking forward to going through my nice and neat boxes next time I want to watch a video, or I'm looking for one for my Little Bug.

Juicing and Leaf Preservation!

Well, tonight we finally tried out our juicer and it was SO wonderful! The juice is delicious and it was simple to make it. We made a carrot and orange juice for our first go round and the votes came in very positive. Little Bug loved it and so did Mama & Daddy! Of course it was kind of a mess to clean up, but really, I think it is so worth the health benefits.

We all have the crud. Daddy was gone today helping some friends to move, so Mama and the kiddos hung out at home. We were able to go for a walk this afternoon, and it was lovely! Little Bug and I chose a bunch of gorgeous leaves to bring home. Then I remembered a fun project from my YMCA day camp counselor days, and I found the directions for it in a kids craft book that I have...and we preserved the leaves by placing them in between wax paper and ironing them. If you do this, you have to first put a layer of newspaper on the ironing board, then a layer of wax paper, then the leaves, another layer of wax paper, and another layer of newspaper. Iron away for 30 seconds on each leaf, and then when you're all done you just pull the wax paper away from the leaves, and voila - you have preserved leaves! I have no idea how long they are preserved for, but I'm excited to find out!

Invasion of the...

BOX ELDER BUGS!!!!!!! People, they're back, and they're getting in our home through every possible crevice. I remember last fall when we found this home and we visited several times before we bought it, I saw GIZILLIONS of box elder bugs everywhere. Needless to say, they kind of creep me out and I have this tendency to want to squish them and get rid of them. They're perfectly harmless, and just happen to enjoy hanging out with us, but I don't like their presence one bit. We have four box elder trees in our backyard, so I think that is one huge reason why there are so many bugs. The trees look kind of pretty though, so perhaps we'll keep them around...even though my original plan was to cut them down and replant with something else.

On another note, we're hanging in there in our house, except that three of us are sick. Yup, me and the kiddos are sick. My illness just crept in today, so I'm trying to get rid of it using my SinuCleanse pot, taking vitamins, and not eating so much sugar! I gotta stop the sugar. It just doesn't help things in general. Also, I'm really excited to try my new Jack LaLanne Power Juicer! I've actually had it sitting in our kitchen for the last several weeks. It was a fun purchase while hubby man was gone in Asia, and now I am looking forward to using it and seeing if it might help me overcome this yucky buggy inside of me!

Despite being ill, two kiddos are surprisingly happy much of the time. Green snot runs down their faces and they keep smiling at me - precious. And to top it off, we had a chance to take some outdoor photos today when Daddy came home from work. We were jumping in the leaves and it was fun and colorful!

That's all for now! Gotta go feed the littlest bug...

Pray for Sarah

I know I haven't posted in a long time, but life has been so busy here. Erik was gone on a 3 week business trip to Asia, and I just didn't have time!

Please pray for a former voice student of mine who was in a terrible car accident two days ago...her name is Sarah. Her Caring Bridge site is http://caringbridge.org/cb/viewHome.do and if that doesn't work, then go to caringbridge.org and type in Sarah Lee. There were four teenagers in the car, and Sarah sustained the worst of the injuries, and is currently in a coma which is partially drug induced. They are trying to keep the swelling down on her brain. Sarah is an incredibly sweet girl, and I had her in my home on a regular basis for a few years. She even babysat for my Kristi a few times. I'm very stunned by all of this, and I'm asking God for healing.

Thanks for your prayers.