Ecclesiastes 3:1

Psalm 18 1-2 I love you, Lord you are my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.

This verse was comforting to me this morning when my mind was spinning. The Lord is my rock and has proven to be faithful in holding my family and I under his comforting wing and gently showing us the path He has for our lives.

During our 5 years of marriage Joe has had 3 jobs and they have all been for very small companies. He was an Athletic Director/PE & Health teacher/Basketball coach for a very small christian school when we got married. When the school unexpectedly closed the following year my brother in law Ben was right there (literally) offering him a job the very day he found out the school closed. He worked as a computer tech for a few years for Ben and really enjoyed the work however he realized that he didn't enjoy it enough to benefit Ben by going back to school to become a bigger asset to the future of the company. Once he realized this Drew approached Joe about becoming a partner in his construction company. The Lord has provided work every single day that Joe and Drew have been working together! One week in January they didn't have work and Joe got a stomach virus and couldn't have worked anyway!

Joe started recently feeling the weight of working for small companies when our insurance went up $200.00/mo and we were struggling to find health insurance that we could afford. Did you know that private insurance is nearly impossible to afford if you want to have babies? Well it is for us anyway! He has always been concerned that we don't have any sort of retirement started to speak of and how physically demanding his job is.

One day Joe was talking to my dad about possibly finding a different job with more long term stability (hopefully) my dad mentioned a position withing Duke Energy (which is who he works for as well as my Uncle and his wife and my Grandpa Glenn did also). Joe was very interested and called the manager of the position.
He has since met with the manager and found out that they hire for the position yearly but he has to go back to school to finish his Engineering degree which he started at Cedarville 6 years ago and then switched to sports management. Going to Cincinnati state (which is what he recommended) it will only take Joe a year to complete! He also had lunch with one of the CPC guys (which is the position he wants) and was VERY excited about what the guy had to say about job satisfaction.

Joe will not be able to continue working with Drew while he goes to school because he will be full time day classes which is a huge bummer. However his sister serves at Hofbrauhaus and enjoys it very much and we found out this morning that she got Joe a position there! He met the manager this morning and found out that training starts today! Yikes! So he had to scramble around and make that work so that he could do a few hours of training each day this week.

Lately

Our new target opened last week and I missed it! I was major bummed that I heard no chatter about huge deals at the grand opening in all of the penny pinching websites that I follow. Actually all I did hear about it was that it is more expensive than the old Target in Florence!
Well I have been itching to go find out first hand and properly introduce myself so that we could get more acquainted. Today was just the day, after tuesdays sunny warm tease and then 2 days of rain I was ready to get out of the house. So with my small list in hand and a huge need for a new broom before small group tonight (our old broom met an untimely death by taking the brunt of a spilled bottle of peanut oil, yuck!) we headed out. Annie fully appreciated the giant red decorative concrete balls out front and I appreciated the extra wide front child seat that allowed me to sit Mia's car seat in horizontally therefore allowing me to see over her and her to interact with her sister in the basket in front! We wandered aimlessly around the new maze and picked up a few things along the way. All in all I was pleased although only shopping for things like a $3 grill brush and $1 pack of hangers I wasn't able to do much price comparing. I was bummed that because its a new store there were not any clearance racks! Oh well.

Impulse buy of the day. I have always wondered about Almond milk and whether I would like it or not. You would think that with all the thrifty shopping I have been doing I would wait to impulse buy with a coupon, but I guess thats why its an impulse... anyway I stumbled across Silk Dark Chocolate Almond Milk. Hmmmmm yes please! More than $3 for a half gallon but whatever, it was my chosen treat!
After attempting to treat Annie and I (using a gift card of course) and being told that there was no Orange Mango Smoothie available at the Target Starbucks and switching my order to Strawberry and being told that the banana order had just arrived and all the bananas were frozen in storage, I quickly changed my mind on the purchased treat and opted to make one of my own at home.
When we got back I threw a ridiculously over ripe, downright brown banana into the blender with a few ice cubes and 8oz of Dark Chocolate Almond Milk Oh. My. Goodness! Heaven! It was AMAZING! Kind of what I figure some sort of frappe would taste like if I had ever gotten one in my life. And its good for you from what I understand which leads me to my next point.

Feeling very convicted about my eating habits for a few weeks now (an entire bag of valentines m&m's in one day anyone?) and a button literally popping off of my jeans one day last week, I decided it was time for some serious action! I prayed about it, journaled all of my thoughts about the sinful part of how I was treating food, and checked out some books by Michael Pollan from the library on eating more natural foods, I asked the Lord for His help in a serious feeling of an uncontrollable idol and addiction in my life.
After failing miserably that very evening with a giant purple dinosaur shaped rice krispie treat (thank you Nickys 1st birthday leftovers) I have gone a whole week with eating no processed, yucky fake factory prepared foods. I have eaten at least 4-5 servings of fruits and vegies daily, consumed tons of water until I now crave it, and successfully only had sweets on a weekend day and they were home made (thanks for the yummy cookies mama)!!! I feel amazing! I exercised 4 times and I lost 2 pounds! It was surprisingly easy with healthy options in the house! I also experimented with making my own wheat thins, cheese its, and bread! Normally in a week I would have made cookie dough & brownies that I would have consumed all of by myself! I am involved once again in the produce co-op so I have lots of options
and "I'm feelin' good"!

What's Up With Me?

Making: Chicken Tacos

Laughing at: Annie dancing on the coffee table "like Dave"

Seeing: How much healthier I could be eating

Hearing: Basketball (it's March and the madness is considered a national holiday worthy of purchasing one month of cable television in order to watch it!)

Tasting: Emerald walnut granola breakfast mix

Smelling: Nothing really although my hubby says it smells like a dirty diaper in here

Feeling: Tired and ready for bed

Reading: In defense of Food by Michael Pollan

Wishing: That I would go take these scratchy contacts out

Loving: Weekends with my hubby and rainy day excuses to lay around

Craving: Chocolate of course but I am fighting it... for now :o)

Liking: that I am back in the produce co-op and have a kitchen full of yummy food

Anticipating: My new shed and raised garden

Thinking: That I am going to get carpel tunnel if I keep trying to type while laying on the couch on my back with the computer haphazardly propped on a pillow :o)

Lately

We call her squish. My dad started it and it has stuck.

Annie has started to say some very grown up phrases and I love it! Today she said "uh, Mama, know what?" before she told me a story and I thought it was the cutest thing that has come out of her mouth ever ;o)

I have one video of Annie as a baby on my fb page making a "pig nose" and snorting and she loves to watch it. She will just randomly ask me to "see baby Annie" and she does all the baby noises along with her little 9month old self! Its pretty funny.

Amelia has a blood blister and two bruises on either side of the tip of her tongue! I feel badly for her because I have no idea when it happened or how. All I can figure is that she either bit down on it one of the times she fell over when trying to pull up or she just chomped down too hard on a foreign object. She has been pulling up on everything lately and has a hard time getting back down unless she just falls over.

I am still working with Annie on potty training. It's not at all like I thought it would be. She totally gets it. She tells me when she has to go 50% of the time and the other half of the time I just feel like it has been too long since she went last and I ask her to go. She has #2 down pretty good with the exception of a few accidents a week. I tried one day to not remind her and just let her go on her own but she had 2 accidents first thing in the morning and I gave up. Plus she is still getting a LOT of candy during the day which I dont think it is time to cut her off of because I think its the only reason she is going without me telling her to. The biggest problem is when we leave the house. I always put a pull up on her when we leave with the best of intentions that I will remember to take her potty. However I don't remember, EVER. And she doesn't tell me that she needs to go and therefore we return home with a wet pull up! Am I just going to have to keep her in panties and have wet pants be my reminder? I feel like we have hit a potty training plateau.

My bestest baby sister got married last weekend and I am lost without her! I am fighting off a state of depression and this has been the longest week of my life with her gone on her honeymoon! I hope its a long week for her too because that would be nice to enjoy a nice long vacation. I keep having crazy dreams about her too, its so weird. I decided to start preparing myself now for when my girls get married because I already feel like "who does Zach think he is taking her away from me?" "She seriously doesn't need me anymore, just like that? Overnight?" I couldn't make myself go to bed the night before her wedding, I just kept standing in her doorway watching her and I was so tired and about to fall over. I finally made myself leave and I hugged her and I started to loose it, she told me she loved me and I completely lost it! As I am now just thinking about it :o) The funny part about that story is that she was trying on some new "married person pajamas", if you will, and so we were standing there with Leah (her Maid of Honor) while she was half dressed!!! Hehe ok now I am laughing :o)
But seriously, come back already, and visit at least twice a week or better yet, move in!

My crazy girl wearing her silly hobo hat, this picture does not do it justice just how ridiculous she looks in this hat that is two sizes to small!

Noteworthy fact of the day: Mia slept through the night last night after 6 nights of sleep training her which means letting her cry it out at night when she wakes up instead of feeding her. It was killing me and I was going in about every 20 min while she cried for over an hour covering her up and rubbing her back. She never got nearly as mad as Annie would when she was little. Mia just sort of whined with an occasional yell. Annie would scream for hours! Here's to praying that she will sleep again tonight!

Happy Valentines Day

Our Valentines events so far in reverse order... because I don't feel like figuring out how to rearrange them :o)

Cupcakes are a must on Valentines Day, Complete with sugary heart shaped sprinkles!

The Baker

The Artist

The assistant and Sous Chef (I think she looks like my Mom in this one... minus the snot anyway, The Mama is always pretty good about appearing snot-less)

I wanted to make fun Valentines day crafts with Annie today... however I was lacking in inspiration until I realized that the child has never even used scissors or seen a heart cut out of construction paper before! We kept it simple and then fancied it up with purple colored glue stick :o)

Stream of Consciousness

Well the evil twin hair clip showed up this afternoon After lurking in the great abyss for 3 days >:o) I'll spare you the bloggers photo of that one! Lets just say I knew it was in there by the pretty silvery gray paint chips that accompanied it. I guess that is why parents say the smell of their childs diapers could peel paint :o)

Joe accompanied me to the grocery today and can I just say that we saved $58.00! I am pretty stinkin proud of myself! I even MADE MONEY on some things! I also got about 6 items free! I have never done that! With Joe tagging along a few non-traditional items found their way into our cart in the name of packed lunches. Somehow a 3 gallon tub of cheese balls happened to end up at our house, which you should have seen Annie's face when Joe showed her!
Do you ever find coupons sticking out from between items on the shelves from the coupon fairy? I have seen it a lot lately and I LOVE it! Even when I don't buy the item or use the coupon myself it makes me smile that some nice person thought of others enough to put them there.

Amelia pulled herself up this week! She is getting so big! She is fun to watch because she is so tiny and its amusing to see her move around so easily. Pulling herself up was no easy task however, it came with a lot of fear & trepidation, tears and sheer determination. I grabbed the camera but once she was done she was not going to try again, I have caught her staring at the couch thinking about it but hasn't brought herself to actually do it.

Breaking News!

My husband has a comment he frequently uses. Whenever something slightly story worthy happens to us (i.e child choking on the side of the highway) he says "well at least now you have something to blog about", like I don't always have wonderfully captivating things to type to you! I should be offended by that especially since he doesn't even read my blog. Seriously I don't think he has ever read it! Not to my knowledge anyway.

However when something so stupidly boring amuses me enough to grab my camera and it turns out I am sharing about an empty refrigerator.... I wonder if he might be right. :o)

But check this out! Depressing, no? It is exciting to me! It means we are saving money! It means I made a menu and a grocery list over a week ago and it lasted me until now! We only just ran out of milk yesterday and other than my child begging for "spicys" = Doritos, we have not wanted for anything. And I made a grocery list today and have big plans for my hubby and I tonight!
I have coupons in my possession worth over $50.00 that I am prepared to hand over!
It was such a wonderful week of leftovers and savings and good meals every night!

And on a side note we have saved up all of our birthday, Christmas, anniversary money and plan on purchasing a new big huge 26cu ft french door with freezer on the bottom fridge this month! Because if there is anything I like better than an old tiny inefficient empty fridge its a big new shiny empty fridge! :o)