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!!!