10 months!!

Wow!! I can't believe Addison is already 10 months old!! I've got to start planning her 1 year birthday! Man, time flies!!

I haven't updated about her since she was born so I thought I'd let the world know how she's doing...

**she weighs 24.4 lbs and is 30.5 in tall (this is in the 100th percentile!!)
**she crawls EVERYWHERE!! And she's so fast!
**she sleeps all night (and has since she was 1 month old - I'm very blessed!)
**bed time is 8:00 sharp! And she lets the world know because she doesn't want to miss bedtime. We have to fight her from about 6:30 until 8:00 so she won't go to sleep earlier and then wake me up at 4
** she smiles all the time! And at everyone!
**she has 8 teeth
**her sister is her best friend!!
** she can say "dada," "mama," "nana," "Mimi," "granddad," and a bunch of other stuff that only I can understand
** her favorite word to say is "addy" haha
**she pulls up on everything and walks when we hold her hands...it won't be long before she takes off!

I am incredibly blessed to have 2 amazing little girls!

Child-like Faith

A few weeks ago, our oldest daughter, Brooklyn, told me that it was going to snow on Christmas. Now, my daughter isn't like most 3 year old's who say something and then forget all about it. No. When Brooklyn gets something in her head she remembers. She will remember for months!

So everytime the conversation turned to Christmas...which it did every few hours since presents were under the tree taunting her...she would bring up the fact that it wasn't Christmas yet because it wasn't snowing. I remember one morning in particular where she woke up, asked "is it Christmas??" and ran to the window to look outside to see if there was snow on the ground. She turned back to me and said very seriously, "it's not Christmas yet because it isn't snowing and it's going to snow on Christmas."

As a mom who doesn't like to see her little girl hurt, I prayed that it would snow on Christmas. And Brooklyn prayed that it would snow on Christmas. But the difference in these two prayers was that she absolutly believed that it was going to snow on Christmas. I on the other hand, having lived in Arkansas my whole life and never once seen a white Christmas, was skeptical. Of course I know God can do anything. He's God!! But come on, last week I was wearing short sleeve shirts with no jacket.

Then the weather man predicted snow on Christmas. What!! It's over 70 degrees outside and we might be getting snow in a week?? Sure... I've never put much hope in what the weathermen "predict" but I sure did hope he was right on this one. How cool would it be for my 3 year old to pray for a white Christmas and get one. Maybe if we lived up north somewhere, but surely not down here in the south where "winter" means anything below 60 degrees.

Then Christmas came!!! The day we had waited weeks for! It finally came!! We opened all our presents. Visited all our families. And then the miracle happened. It turned cold. No, not cold. Freezing! Then it started to rain. We all know what happens to rain when the weather is below 32 degrees. Usually in Arkansas its called freezing rain and our roads turn icy. It started out that way, but quickly turned into snow. Big, huge, beautiful white snowflakes. And the surprising part? It stuck to the ground! It hadn't been snowing very long before we had 2" of snow! When I got up this morning we had at least a foot of snow in our backyard. This is record breaking for us!

Brooklyn was so excited!! I asked her, "do you know who made it snow?" She responded "God." "You know God make it snow for you right?" I asked, and in that beautiful child-like faith she replied, "I was thinking about that." She looked at it through open blinds all evening until she had to go to bed and when she woke up she ran to the door and exclaimed, "the snow is sparkling! I want to go play in it!!"

It took 15 minutes for the two of us to get layered up to go outside and then we only lasted about 3 minutes before Brooklyn wanted to go back inside. Luke asked her if she had fun in the snow and she said "yes, I want to go back and play in it when the snow gets warmer." Oh, that's my girl!!

After reading this long post, I'm sure you're wondering where this is all heading. What does it have to do with having child-like faith? I prayed and God answered my prayer. But my prayer held skeptisizm. Matthew 21:21 says "Jesus replied," I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what has been done to this fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go throw yourself into the sea' and it will be done."

So many times our prayers hold doubt. We pray for snow thinking that it's probably not going to happen. But God wants us to have faith. To not doubt Him. Even though our prayers might not be answered the exact way we think they should, or in the time that they should, God knows what He's doing and is always faithful.

I prayed a specific prayer every night as a child. Finally I stopped praying it. I didn't give up on the prayer, but I grew out of the child-like faith of my very specific prayer being answered and just decided God's Will would be done in His time. Very recently, my specific prayer was answered exactly as I had prayed back when I was a child. He never stops amazing me!!

As we get older, hold onto the child-like faith. Don't be naive or ask for things that you know is not God's Will, but have faith that God has your best interest at heart. He will provide.

First day of school and Puggles

This past week was a week for firsts! On Tuesday Brooklyn not only turned 3 years old!! (my how time flies!), but she also started school again. She is in the Lamb class. She loves it so much! She loves school just like her momma! And it makes me so proud!

She also started Awana! I was in Awana when I was young and loved it!! I have so many great memories from it. When I found out she was old enough to start I got so excited!! They have a new class called Puggles for 2-3 year olds. She came home talking about how God made the sun and light. It was pretty awesome!

Favorite Reads

I absolutely LOVE reading! (One of the reasons I became a teacher is because I want to teach others to love to read as much as I do.) I'm one of those people who can't have a cereal box on the table without reading every single word on it. Yes, even the nutritional facts and those really big words that supposably make up the content. But anyways, I wanted to share some of my favorite books with my readers. here are a few:

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers

Rivers fictionalizes the Biblical story of Gomer and Hosea in a beautiful story of love that knows no wrongs. It portrays the picture of God's never-ending, non-restrictive, redeeming love. I will be honest and say this isn't a book for the younger readers. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone under 16 just because of some of the heavy material thats in it. It's an easy read, but it can be emotionally hard. It's totally worth the box of tissues!

Danger in the Shadows by Dee Henderson

Henderson writes suspenseful, Christian, love stories. So basically the best books ever! I really enjoy love stories, but sometimes its nice to have twists, turns, and some suspense mixed in. This book is the prequel to the O'Malley series also by Henderson which follow the same suspenseful, Christian, love genre. Danger in the Shadows is personally my favorite, but any book by Dee Henderson is really good!

Karen Kingsbury: Any book written by her is worth the money and the read! She is hands-down my favorite author!  Her characters become my best friends and I seriously find myself praying for these fictional characters. She is an author that requires a box of tissues near because she always tugs at your heart (in a good way). My favorite part about her books is that they always encourage me to deepen my walk with God.




These are my all-time favorite books/authors! I love many other books, but these top them all (except the Bible). If you've read them, let me know what you think about them and if you haven't, you can borrow them or go to the library and check them out.

What books are your favs?

Packing for Kids

I love to sleep in! I hate waking up in the morning. I literally set my alarm clock so I have enough time to hit snooze a couple of times. Since I love to sleep in, I tend to run late. I get frazzeled when I run late and always seem to forget to bring something. You think I would learn to wake up even earlier after a while. But I have learned to pack the night before so that I don't forget anything of the girls.

If I forget something of my own I can usually live, but having two little girls, I can't forget to bring their stuff. There is always a diaper to be changed, a mouth to feed, or clothes needing to be changed. I thought I'd share what I pack for the girls.

Brooklyn (almost 3):

• Change of clothes (shirt, shorts, panties, socks, and tennis shoes)
• Pj's (when we're at our families late we let the girls take a bath there so we can put them right to bed when we get home)
• Sunglasses: Brooklyn's eyes are blue and very sensative to the sun)
• Sippy cup: I can't expect everyone to have one or be okay with a 2 year old using a big girl cup at their house
• "Cookie bar": granola bar for when she gets hungry
• Pull-ups: we're still working on potty training :)

 



Addison (3 months old):

• Medicine bag: baby powder, mylecone, oragel, baggies, prescribed meds, desitin, and children's Tylenol (who knows when we will need any of these. By keeping them in the bag all the time we always know where they are even when we're at home)
• Change of clothes
• Pj's
• Burp clothes and bibs (several since I have a very drooly baby)
• Bottle (usually with water already in it)
• Pre-measured formula
• Diapers, wipes, & butt paste
• Pacy (she doesn't take one a lot but I'd rather have one to be safe)

I hope this helps the moms or soon-to-be-moms. If you have kids please share what you do because you might have better preparations than me :)

Our Hectic Week

Life has been completely hectic for the past 2 weeks!! I've been at my house for probably a total of 36 hours where I haven't been sleeping.
My mom moved 2 weekends ago so I spent several days helping her. I don't know where my organizing gene comes from because it doesn't come from my mom. Thankfully I LOVE to organize! I helped her get moved and organized in a matter of days.

Wednesday of that week, Brooklyn and I had plans to go to the Little Rock Zoo with her friends from school...but mommy got called for an interview. :) So, I let Brooklyn go with her friend Maelyn and her mom who was gracious enough to take/watch B for the morning. I went to my interview which I felt went really well. I was so nervous I was shaking, but once I got in there God calmed me down. I don't know yet if I will get this job, but I'm not worried. I know for a fact that God has the PERFECT job picked out for me. One where I can be used to show His Love. I've applied for several jobs and I know many more will open up over the summer. I'm just thankful to get called for an interview because I know people who tried all last summer without getting a single interview. Plus, now I have a feel of how the interview process goes so hopefully I won't be so nervous next time.

Thursday I had planned for me and the girls to go to Cabot to see my friend Jacqueline and her daughter Lexi. We don't get to hang out near enough. But all chaos broke loose at my house that morning... Ok, so this is a bit of an exaggeration, but I was STRESSED!!

After the girls woke up and we had breakfast, I started a load of laundry, then took the girls outside to help me pull some weeds out of our flower garden in the front because it was needing a little TLC. We had been outside for maybe 20 minutes when I saw some ants so I went around to the garage, opened it to get the ant spray and was met with an inch of water covering my garage floor!!! I immediatly called my grandparents because they know how to handle these types of situations. After I got off the phone with them, I took the girls inside where I saw that my hallway, laundry room, kitchen, master bedroom, and master closet were covered with water!!!! PANIC!! I did a little more calling to get help, turned off the water to the washing machine, fed Addison, layed her down for a nap, then had a minor panic attack all before anyone showed up. Luke was at school in LR, but thankfully with the help of my grandparents and Luke's papaw, we got all the water cleaned up and diagnosed the problem as a broken washing machine all within 2 hours. Thankfully nothing was ruined or even messed up.

Pop (Luke's dad) came over, saw the problem, then went straight to Lowe's to buy us a new washing machine!! We are so blessed to have them! He picked out an HE machine that is huge and absolutly wonderful!! I love doing laundry now!!

We ended up getting to go to Cabot and enjoy the evening relaxing with Jacqueline and Lexi.

Since then, we've spent time time with Luke's family, celebrated my grandmother's 75th birthday, took a break to go swimming at Centennial, painted a room at my grandparents (it takes me twice as long now having 2 little ones around), and played with Brooklyn's friends at the park. Yes, it's been crazy. My house is needing some care because I haven't been home long enough to get everything back in order from the "flood." But, I wouldn't trade any of it because I enjoy what I do. Maybe next week I can finish up a couple of projects and then rest. I sure do need some "boring" stay-at-home-rest-time.

Time/Money Saver

There are some things you do just because your mom does it that way. You don't really know why you do it that way, but you just do. Most of the ways I cook is because that's how my mom or Mamaw cooks. One of the things I do (because my mom always did) is buy a 5 lb roll of hamburger meat and divide it up. At first I didn't know why I did it, but after looking into buying meat I realized that the 5 lb roll is cheaper than the rest. I can't tell the difference between the 5 lb roll and the smaller "fresher" meat. I buy 73%/27%. It's fattier, but it's cheaper than the less fat meat.

You could easily throw the whole 5 lb roll in the freezer after you get home from the store. But why thaw the whole 5 lbs when you're only going to use 1 lb? You're not suppose to re-freeze meat once it's been thawed. So, I divide the 5 lb roll into 5 seperate freezer bags, label and write the date on it, and freeze that way. When I want to cook burgers, spagetti, hamburger helper, or anything else that requires 1 lb of hamburger meat, I just pull out one bag to thaw so I don't waste meat.

It save time and money!

Memorial Day Picnic

Every year on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, Antioch Baptist Church (the church I am so blessed to call my home church) has a picnic. The past 2 years it's been at the playground of Conway Human Development Center. The church provides the meats and the congregation provides everything else. There is always plenty of food. The kids go out and play on the equipment or start a game of football, the guys play washers, and the women talk to each other. I guess you could say it's a typical Baptist get-together and I honestly wouldn't have it any other way. :) I met new people (we have such a big congregation that we have 3 services and I can't seem to remember everyone), got to talk to old friends that I haven't seen in years, and got to have a ton of fun with my girls and our friends (the poor hubby has to work all the time).

Summer Projects

This summer there are several things I want to accomplish. I thought I'd share what my main ones are because hopefully I will be blogging about them throughout the summer.

1. Blog more often: even if I only do 1 post a month it will be more than I've been doing. Hopefully I'll do more than 1 post :) I really want to blog about different books I've read so maybe I will get a chance to do that.

2. Pinterest notebook: I saw this idea when substituting one day. The teacher had a to-do list on her desk and one of the things said "Pinterest notebook." I don't know what she meant by that, but I thought it would be a good idea to organize different things I've found on Pinterest. (If you don't know what Pinterest is, check it out at www.pinterest.com) One of the main reasons I want it is for my classroom. I see so many cute ideas on Pinterest that I want to incorporate in my classroom so I thought I'd organize them in one place to make it easier on me during the school year.

3. Organize my grandparents shed: My grandparents have lived in Conway for about 12 years. They brought so much "junk" that they thought they'd need and haven't used and they've also accumulated so much more "junk." Most of it they don't use but it has taken over their shed, behind their shed, their attic, and their garage. So, since they do so much for me, I'm going to help my granddad get his stuff organized. You might have noticed how I said they have stuff taking over many different parts of their house. Each part is such a big task in and of itself that I'm not committing to all this summer. I'm only starting with one and will work til its done and then start on another part. I can't wait to see the ending results. (Have I mentioned just how much I LOVE ORGANIZING!!!!)

4. Potty Train Brooklyn

5. Cook more often (and learn to cook smaller amounts so we don't have so much leftovers, because Luke won't eat leftovers and I get tired of the same stuff for days)

6. Spend less money when grocery shopping: I love lists! But when I'm grocery shopping I never seem to make a thorough enough list and I never stick to my list. I want to do better at sticking to my lists AND use coupons better. Hopefully I can save us some money.

7. Clean/Organize my garage: let's just say, it's about to explode with all the stuff it has in it.


There are other misc. projects I will have throughout the summer. I'm not one to do nothing and just "relax." Spending time with Luke and the girls is me "relaxing." I can't wait for all the fun stuff we are going to do this summer!

Let the summer begin!!!

Wye Mountain

The girls at Wye Mountain
It's such a beautiful place

The best I could get of Addison by herself.

Brooklyn wanted to take a picture with the tree.

The girls and I went to Wye Mtn one day while Luke was at work. We had a lot of fun and even got some daffodils to plant at our house. It was hard to take pictures with it just being me but at least I got a couple. This is going to be a yearly tradition.

Our Family of Four

My two girls are just perfect! God has blessed us so much by letting these two be in our lives! It is defintely been an adjustment going from a family of 3 to a family of 4. Though it was very easy adjusting to having a newborn in our house, my time is now divided been my 2 1/2 year old and my 4 week old.

Brooklyn is a very easy child! She has her routine and doesn't require constant attention. Her terrible two's have finally hit and she tells us "no" all the time and doesn't obey as well as she use to. But even with that, she is the sweetest, most loving little girl ever! And she loves Addison so much!! When she first wakes up in the morning she always says "where's Addy?" And if Addison cries then she says "it's okay Addison, don't cry." It blesses my heart!

Addison is such a great little baby. She is totally a momma's girl already! She doesn't sleep through the night so I don't sleep much, but she is so great to cuddle with! And she's grown so much already. She can't wear any newborn clothes anymore and makes the funniest faces. I love her so much!

Luke and I are so happy with our little family! God has blessed us more than words can say!

Addison Michelle

Boy, have our lives changed in the last 4 weeks. Yes, it's already been 4 weeks since Miss. Addison was born. I can't believe how time has flown!

It all started Wednesday, February 22 at around 5:00pm. I began having contractions every 8 minutes apart. We had already had several "false alarms" where I had contractions for a couple hours and then they just stopped. So we decided to wait for a while before heading up to the hospital. I had already cleaned the house and done all the laundry earlier that day, but I decided to make sure I had everything ready in our bags. Around 7:30 we decided to take Brooklyn to my grandparents and head on up to the hospital. We called both our moms to let them know we were going but not to come up yet. It's a good thing they waited...

We got to the hospital and they got me all set up on monitors in the triage in labory & delivery. By this time, my contractions were roughly every 2-3 minutes. Sounds like I was trucking along, right? No. Though I had dilated to a 2, I wasn't dilating any more. I wasn't 39 weeks just yet, so the OBGYN on call wouldn't admit me because if he had to break my water he would technically be "inducing" me. They didn't want to send me home because I would just be right back up there. So we waited... We walked the hospital a couple of times. I did some squats. They just needed any progress to admit me.

Finally, right after midnight they could admit me. (I was 39 weeks exactly according to them) They started my IV and I just about passed out. You'd think after having one child, I wouldn't get weak just by getting an IV...but no. I didn't have to wait long too long to get my epidural. I started out doing really good while she was giving it to me. I felt everything, but I was calm and it really didn't hurt all that bad...but as soon as she had got it done, and before she put the medicine in, my blood pressure dropped to 60/30 and I just about passed out again. They gave me some oxygen and I quickly got to feeling better.

Shortly after, my mom got there and I don't remember very much after that. They gave me a concoction of drugs for nausea, itching, patocin, and just the normal fluids. I literally slept for hours. I would wake up when visitors came or when the nurses tried to talk to me but I was just too exhausted to remember much. Around 2:20 I knew something had changed and I just barely mentioned it to my mom before falling back asleep. She went to get the nurse to check me and it was go time!

Addison was pushing herself out without my help. They usually have you push before the doctor gets there so all they have to do is catch the baby...but the nurse said not to push at all because she was already coming out on her own. My doctor got there quickly and with only 6 pushes, for a total of 4 minutes, Addison was here! 8 lbs. 2 oz 19 1/2 inches

Here are just a couple pictures from her birth:

Luke and Matthew have been best friends for a very long time. Matthew and Bethany had Jett 3 weeks before Addison was born. We were excited to get a picture of them together as baby's. They're going to grow up being good friends.

This was when we were going home.

She looks so much like Brooklyn right here that I'm sure one day I won't know which daughter this is.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I don't know about you but I've gotten tired of buying laundry detergent and paying those high prices! I haven't gotten good at couponing so I don't get it free or half-off or even for a lower price. So I've decided to make my own laundry detergent and try it out for a while.

A couple years ago, my supervisor at work gave me a recipe and told me how she made her own laundry detergent, it lasted her a year at least, and only cost $13. I wanted to try it then, but was scared and didn't really have a reason to since my mom still bought everything. I've lost the recipe she gave me, so I turned to Pinterest (of course) to find a similiar recipe to use. Her's was liquid and I chose to do a powdered kind, but the ingredients were very similiar:

1 cup borax

1 cup Arm & Hammer washing soda

1 bar of Fels-Naptha (soap)

You start out by grating the bar of soap just like you would cheese. It's the same color too so other than the smell it looks exactly like cheese.

Then you add the Borax and washing soda (1 cup each). Mix as best you can.

You can leave it in th same container you made it in, but I found a large mason jar around the house to put it in. Then I used my Cricut to label it with the correct measurement for use. (1 tbsp)

And there you have it! Homemade laundry detergent. I spent less than $10 and still have enough Borax and washing soda to make at least 5 more batches. The soap is less than a dollar too. All you do is use 1 tbsp of the mix per load of laundry so it lasts a long time!

I tried it out on a load of laundry (without fabric softner) and it doesn't really leave much of a smell. It has a faint hint of the soap, but it doesn't smell like all the fancy detergent we pay $$ for. Hopefully it won't let me down...I'm going to try it with fabric softner to see if that will make my clothes smell good. Let me know what you think if you've tried this before!

The Hunger Games

Everyone has recently been talking about The Hunger Games. They've made a movie that is going to come out in March, so this trilogy of books has quickly become very popular. I love reading and needed a good book, so I decided to take everyone's advice and read The Hunger Games.

I was not disappointed! It captured me from the very beginning. It's a pretty easy book to read as well. I don't recommend it for younger kids or even young teenagers because the concept of th Hunger Games is pretty barbaric. Kids killing other kids for "entertainment" of those in the capitol. Thankfully we don't live in that kind of world. The main characters fight against this barbaric-ism the entire trilogy which is what makes the books so good and captivating.

I always seem to analyze the books I read (thank you world lit!) but I'll save anyone reading this the pain of what I feel the author could be suggesting about our governement. I definitely think this is going to be a good movie and I cannot wait to see it! (Liam Hiemsworth is in it ;)

So if you're looking for a good book(s) to read, I recommend The Hunger Games trilogy.