M is for Montgomery

Football Party

2011-02-26T10:45:00.001-05:00

Its almost party time and I am exhausted but so excited about Harrison's party. We changed a few things around but are still going with the football theme. I knew that I wanted to do a dessert table as the main decoration in the room and I was able to sketch up what I had in mind. This actually made things so much easier as I was able to get a better idea of what I needed and how things would fit.

I decided to go with a football ice cream cake and orange dreamsicle cupcakes since we were entertaining little guests and figured that would be easier to serve and quick for them to grab as they were playing. I also stayed with the orange,brown and white color scheme and it was so much easier to make decisions based on the coordinating colors. We put out all sorts of orange colored snacks and drinks and even had a popcorn machine.

I wanted to do a custom banner and cupcake toppers but did not want to have to purchase a template so I looked around and was able to find a few free ones.I am in love with all things TomKat but again, I was trying to keep costs down so I decided just to use some of her parties for inspiration. I am in love with this crab shack ideaI

I have my own cupcake towers and will use a trifle dish for a pedestal for the cake. I'm going to have bagged football cookies for favors and orange cake pops. I picked up a few different orange and brown candies to have on the table as well. I love how she coordinates all of the little labels and although I didn't do that this time, I'm going to try to get started a little bit sooner on the next party so I have time to complete everything. I love this tablescape and think any child would flip to see a table of treats like this.

I mean are you kidding me!? so stinkin cute! This again was my inspiration and I strive to one day be able to emulate what she does. I would like to think I am pretty creative but this lady blows me out of the water. Her blog is full of the prettiest little parties you have ever seen.

So back to Harrison's big day, I knew that I wanted little pennants as the toppers to stay with the theme and found a free template at fogandthistle for these cute little guys.

They are available in boy or girl colors and looked so cute sticking out of the cupcakes. I also found a template to make a happy birthday banner. I can't remember where I found it but if you search for "paper pennant" you will find a ton of tutorials. I ended up cutting the triangles from scrapbooking paper and cut the letters with my cricut machine. I used a hole punch and embroidery floss to string the letters together and hung it on the front of the table.

Next year I would like to make a fabric one like this. It is so cute and would be perfect for a boy or girls party.

I am loving the little ruffled edges. Do you see the little flame on each letter? So cute.

I've got to get things set up but I will post pictures of the party later.

Harrison is turning 4!

2011-02-17T23:04:00.000-05:00

I can't believe my little guy is going to be four years old. He has decided that he wants to do a football themed party this year and thankfully we have a big back yard so we can do lots of sports themed games. I am still searching for fun ideas for the party although I always seem to get overwhelmed with all of the options. I think going one step further with the football theme and making it a VOLS football party will be a lot more fun since we have some die hard UT fans around here. Anyway,here is what I've got so far.

Party Games:
o.k. I figure these are four year old kids so they arent going to want games that are too difficult to play. A friend has corn hole that Im going to ask to borrow and i saw an idea for throwing a football through a hula hoop or a tire. We are also going to borrow a small bounce house that should keep them busy for quite a while.

Food:
I thought we could stick with the whole football concession thing and serve nachos and cheese dip, hot dogs and popcorn. I think our local rental place has a popcorn machine that we can rent to make fresh popcorn. I'm gonna check with chloe's school and see if I can get a stack of the little paper boats that they serve hot dogs in to use for the food. I'm gonna make some orange and white punch. I'm thinking something easy like orange fanta and vanilla ice cream and some yummy orange tea for the adults. We will have cheetos, carrots with ranch, and probably a few other little treats that are orange and white.

Cake:
Harrison decided early on that he wanted a football cake so I'm gonna do an orange dreamsicle cake that looks like a football field. I found a delicious looking recipe that I am gonna tweak just a little bit but I think it will be amazing.

Dreamsicle cake recipe

1 package (18.25 ounces) lemon Supreme cake mix
1 small package orange jello (3 oz)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon orange extract
1-1/4 cups orange juice
1/4 teaspoon unsweetened orange Kool Aid

Preheat oven to 350°F and spray 9x13 pan with cooking spray.
Place cake mix, jello, oil, eggs, and orange extract in mixingbowl. Add orange juice and Kool Aid and beat on low until moistened. Increase to medium and beat a few minutes longer. The batter will be smooth. Pour into pan. Bake 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Don’t overbake.

If the creamcicle cake humps up in the center, when you take it out of the oven, put a folded towel over it and press down with your hands. Viola – a perfectly even cake (what you are doing is pressing the air out). Let cool while making topping:

Pineapple cream cheese topping for the creamcicle cake.

Beat together:
1 can, about 20 oz, crushed pineapple, drained or not – whatever you like (undrained your frosting will be a little softer – I like that version since it has more flavor)
3 oz cream cheese, softened
3.5 oz package instant vanilla pudding
Then fold in:
8 oz or so thawed whipped topping
Spread on cooled cake and garnish as desired.

If by some turn of events the weather is hot, I think I might make this version as well.

Orange-Raspberry Dreamsicle Cake

Recipe Ingredients

2 pkg (13 oz each) coconut macaroons (we used Archway)
3 cups (1 1⁄2 pt) raspberry sherbet
2 pt vanilla ice cream
3 cups (1 1⁄2 pt) orange sherbet
Garnish: pretty iced cookies Recipe Preparation

1. Line a 13 x 9 x 2-in. pan with foil, letting foil extend about 2 in. above pan at both ends. Lightly coat with nonstick spray.

2. Line bottom of the pan with macaroons; press to flatten and form a layer. Freeze 20 minutes, or until firm. Meanwhile, refrigerate raspberry sherbet and 1 pt vanilla ice cream to soften slightly.

3. Drop spoonfuls of softened sherbet and ice cream into crust, alternating flavors and packing them down as you go. Freeze 2 hours, or until firm.

4. Repeat with orange sherbet and remaining vanilla ice cream. Freeze 30 minutes to set, then swirl surface decoratively. Freeze 6 hours, or until hard, and serve, or wrap airtight and freeze up to 2 weeks.

5. To serve: Lift foil by ends onto cutting board; remove foil. Cut in 9 bars; cut bars in half diagonally to make wedges
Decorations:
This should be super easy. We are gonna stick orange and white pom poms everywhere and hang orange and white streamers from the doorways and over the table with the cake. I may try to print out big football players and tape them to the floor for the kids to color. I'm gonna head to sallys to get some orange and white spray for the kids to put in their hair. We are going to invite all of our guests to wear their orange and white and im going to try to find someone to borrow ref shirts from for monty and I to wear.

Oh Baby

2011-02-03T02:08:00.000-05:00

Shout to the heavens! It is one am and Jacob is asleep in his crib. So it is night two -well technically 3 but Monday didn't count because I gave up at 2 a.m. and finally just brought him to bed with me- of teaching Jacob that he doesn't have to sleep with his tiny baby feet in my back and neck any longer. As with the other two, I felt that co-sleeping was the best option for us when Jacob was preparing to make his way into the world. I have thoroughly enjoyed cuddling with him every evening and did not mind at all the middle of the night feedings and waking up at 3 am just to lean down about an inch from his face to make sure he was breathing. I only got out a tiny mirror and held it under his nose once. ok, twice but you have to really make sure when they are so tiny. It is hard to tell if their chest is rising and falling so that really was my only option. back to the point. I have been so blessed to have a healthy baby boy who loves to snuggle right up next to his mommy. I was not in any kind of a hurry to make him go sleep all the way across the hall in his huge crib all by himself. My husband on the other hand is ready to get our bed back. He has been sleeping on the very edge of the bed for about six months now and I think he is over it. He informed me the other day that it was time to begin the transition into the crib. I, being the flexible, supportive wife that I am said, "of course! you are so right! It is important to develop good sleeping habits at an early age and if we ever hope to sleeping soundly through the night with all children tucked into their own beds then we must get Jacob used to sleeping in his crib now." That is a lie. What I really said was, "are you kidding me? he is so little! He still likes to eat a few times during the night and needs me near him. His room is so far away. all the way across the hall! and his crib is so big and he might get cold but he cant tell us because he cant talk and what if he gets too hot and starts having trouble breathing? SIDS has been linked to babies getting too warm while they sleep. No, we need to just wait a little bit longer. What about when he is one?"

So here we are....night number two of him sleeping in his crib. We are trying to establish a nightly routine but I'm still haven't figured out what the magic number is for his bedtime. We have tried 645 and 8 and both times he woke up around 11p.m. ready to play and have a snack. Tonight I put him down at 9 because he had a late nap and he slept soundly until about 11. I went up to feed him and got him back down. It is now 1:45 and he has woken up crying six times. I know they are supposed to learn to self soothe but I just cant seem to get on board with that one. When he wakes up he starts crying and if I get there soon enough, I can give him his pacifier and he will go back to sleep but if I wait and try to let him "cry it out" he flips out and gets more and more worked up. I don't know what I'm doing at all! meanwhile, I'm like a zombie walking around half awake trying to get through my day. He has been quiet for the last 45 minutes so I guess I'm gonna try to go on up to bed. I thought maybe I could wait it out and stay up until he was good and asleep for the night but I did not know it would be this late.

Do you ever get tired thinking about the next day and you haven't even gone to bed yet? That is just sad. Oh well, it won't be like this forever. I must remember that and be thankful for all that God has blessed me with. Thanks for stopping by and supporting my ranting. Talk to you soon.

swagbucks!!

2011-01-26T00:08:00.000-05:00

I love swagbucks! If you haven't heard about it, it is a search engine that gives you the opportunity to win "swagbucks" for doing things you probably do anyway:search, shop, answer polls and more. Your points are tallied up and you can redeem them at anytime for items in their swagstore. The best thing I have found is the amazon gift card. I have redeemed points for amazon and smilebox gift cards and am currently saving up for another $25 gift card from amazon so I can get a new gps that they have on sale for 67.00. I have heard of a few people adding up their points all year and redeeming them in october for amazon gift cards and using them for all of their christmas shopping. I think I may try to do that for a few months at least.

Another great thing about swagbucks is that you can refer people and when they sign up, you get points as they win points. Imagine if you got even 10 people to sign up. Ive racked up almost 3,000 points in just a few months. It is basically free money for something you are going to do anyway. It is free to sign up and they will award you 30 swagbucks to get started. http://swagbucks.com/refer/momof3intn

creating a banner

2011-01-18T00:34:00.000-05:00

So as scatterbrained as I am, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I sat down two hours ago to write a post and ended up getting sidetracked when I decided to change my banner really quick. I created this blog over a year ago and the design is pretty generic. I have been wanting to personalize it for some time but I just haven't got around to doing it.

As I mentioned before, I started to just change my "about" info and decided to look up a quick tutorial on designing a banner and here I am two hours later with no post and no changes to my blog. SO frustrating. I found a few different tutorials that seemed pretty straightforward but try as I might, I just am not any good with reading code. I tried over and over again to cut and paste new code into my html but I kept getting an error message. Am I seriously just retarded or have any of you had problems with this as well? I actually think I may have found a site with a step by step on creating a banner and plugging it into the header section. Hopefully it won't involve reading any code. Hopefully it will look something like one of these pics below.

I think the bottom right is my favorite!

I watched The Social Network again this weekend and it is amazing to me to think about sitting and writing code for hours upon hours. I took a web design class my junior year in college and somehow managed to create a website from scratch. I remember bits and pieces of what I learned but I think it was mostly just copying from the book and plugging in a few words here and there. Maybe its time to dig through the book shelves and see if I can find any of the books from my class. I think I am going to give it one more shot. Hopefully before my next post I will have a pretty new personalized banner. Once I figure it out, I will share what I learned.

Kristy

Favorite Dinner Ever!

2011-01-06T22:52:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine shared a recipe with me the other day for bruschetta chicken and I decided to go ahead and give it a try. I am not so good at picking winners when it comes to new recipes so I was a bit nervous but oh my goodness. It was amazing! This is probably one of the best meals I have made in a long time. I was thrilled because, for once, everyone liked it.

Bruschetta Chicken. Yum!

I have had soo many requests for this recipe already so I thought I would pass it along to all of you. I served it with Ronzoni garden delight fettucine and asparagus. If you like bruschetta at all you will love this dish. I actually doubled the topping and used it for traditional bruschetta tonight. I am so excited for you to try this. It actually is a really quick and easy meal that is sure to impress. The recipe calls for traditional bread crumbs but I use panko because it stays really crunchy while baking. Let me know what you think!

BRUSCHETTA CHICKEN

4 Servings
Prep: 10 min. Bake: 30 min.

Ingredients

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup egg substitute
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (4 ounces each)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
1 tablespoon butter, melted
2 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped
3 tablespoons minced fresh basil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions

Place flour and eggs in separate shallow bowls. Dip chicken in flour, then in eggs; place in a greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish. Combine the Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs and butter; sprinkle over chicken.
Loosely cover baking dish with foil. Bake at 375° for 20 minutes. Uncover; bake 5-10 minutes longer or until a meat thermometer reads 170°.
Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine the remaining ingredients. Spoon over the chicken. Return to the oven for 3-5 minutes or until tomato mixture is heated through. Yield: 4 servings.

Nutritional Analysis: One serving (prepared with 1/2 cup egg substitute) equals 358 calories, 13 g fat (5 g saturated fat), 86 mg cholesterol, 623 mg sodium, 22 g carbohydrate, 2 g fiber, 36 g protein. Diabetic Exchanges: 4-1/2 lean meat, 1 starch, 1 vegetable.

Cleaning House

2010-11-28T00:50:00.000-05:00

I finally had a yard sale this past weekend. Yes, I know it is November. Yes, I know that people usually don't do yard sales this late in the year. My husband was threatening to throw everything away though so I figured it was now or never. I have made him move those boxes around for the past three years. I always meant to get rid of everything but things always came up so the pile actually grew and grew and collected dust. A local preschool offered to "host" the sale for a small donation from each person selling and it worked out pretty good because the school is located on a busy street.

So here is what I learned about yard sales:
-I am definitely a rookie when it comes to having one. I had no idea what I was doing.
-apparently just showing up and setting everything out on a table is not such a good strategy
-your stuff isn't going to go for nearly what you think it is worth
-people are cheap,cheap,cheap
-be prepared to haggle and don't back down!
-it is a lot less stressful if you have at least one other person to help you and if you price things beforehand
-next time(of there is one) I will color code everything and use a master price sheet

I was genuinely surprised at how cheap and aggressive people were with my things. I was second guessing myself on a lot of things because people were commenting on how they didn't want to pay what i was asking. I ended up settling for a lot less than I could have because I was unsure of myself. I have a feeling that some of my things will probably be resold for a bit of profit. Oh well. lesson learned. at least the garage is somewhat organized now. I spent about 4 hours out there yesterday afternoon organizing and going through things. Our plan is to be able to park the car in there by December 1st.

It is amazing to me how much stuff we collect as we move along in our lives. I am the type that gets distracted easily so it was very difficult to stay on task while cleaning the garage. Every time I would open a box I would sift through it and get caught up looking at old pictures and art projects. Little toys that got shoved here or dropped there. I have talked about "cleaning up" and becoming more organized for the past three years but I just can't seem to get it done. I hate clutter but it makes me sad to get rid of old things. I guess mostly stuff that Chloe made or gave to me. Its all just stuff though and its not the stuff that matters.

We will see how long the cleaning streak lasts. I'm sure I will find another project to focus on before too long.

Winter seems well under way. Stay warm. We'll talk soon

Kristy
-

Catching Up

2010-11-16T00:16:00.000-05:00

Well the last time you heard from me I was a little over halfway through my horrendous pregnancy. Things actually ended up going pretty smoothly the last few months. I was able to embrace the fact that this would be my last pregnancy and I think God healed me of my sickness and allowed me to really enjoy it and I felt I was finally able to really bond with my baby before he was born. Things got pretty busy there for a while. Once I was well enough to have my pump taken out, I was nonstop. I felt like I had so much to catch up on.

We stumbled upon a great house(we had been half heartedly searching for months) about a month before my due date and decided rather in a hurry that we needed to go ahead and take a leap and try to get into it before baby Jacob got here. That was an insane week. Yes, I said week. We somehow packed up and moved our entire place in 7 days. All of this while monty was putting in 9-10 hour days at work.Oh and did I mention that we painted the entire house. All 3 levels. 8 rooms total. all different colors... and not just a coat of white. We decided that we should go ahead and do custom paint in each room. Well, we had to score,soak & rip off the 20 year old wallpaper that was plastered all over the house first, then we had to prime, then we painted. seriously. what were we thinking?

The kitchen had no floor and we were tempted to leave that lovely trim. not really.

This was the bedroom in the lower level off the family room. Again, no floor. and some mold problems. My husband had(has) high hopes for this place. Glad he could see through the mess. I on the other hand, could see nothing but what needed to be done.

This burgundy wallpaper was the bane of my existence. I hate wallpaper. hate it. We have been in the house for about five months now. We are slowly getting settled. We still need to re-do the family room downstairs. My dear husband really wants to decorate it in everything UT but we promised Chloe that it would be half fun hangout room for her and her friends and half playroom for the boys. Im sooo bad at decorating and have no idea where to begin as far as picking a color palatte.

We are in the process of fixing Chloe's bedroom but we have been having issues with flooding and had to have the floor ripped up again and had industrial dehumidifiers all over the place for a week. I will have to take some pictures of the rooms that are finished so you can see all of our hard work. Wait, that would only give you one picture. I have yet to complete one entire room. There are 2 or 3 things in each room that I still need to make it finished. Maybe I will get around to that this year. Hope you all have been doing well. I promise we will catch up more soon.

Have a blessed day my friends. Talk to you soon....

Kristy

It's a boy!

2010-03-11T22:08:00.000-05:00

We had our ultrasound this past week and were happy to find out that the new baby is a boy. We took the kids with us which was a decision I fought for as my dear husband wanted it to be just the two of us. I thought since Chloe was old enough to know what was going on that she deserved to be there so she felt included and she really wanted to go. We took Harrison because we had no choice. We have no babysitters! I don't understand how we have lived in this town for 10 years and we still do not have a list of reliable, trustworthy people to babysit for us. We have asked around but I guess there is a shortage of teenage girls who want to make extra money caring for our sweet, wonderful children. o.k. I got sidetracked. We thought we would make the appointment fun by buying pink and blue balloons and planned to have the kids sit in the hallway while we found out and then we would throw whatever color balloons were fitting out at the kids. Well we never made it that far because Harrison started fidgeting and miss bossy pants started trying to make him sit still (we could hear everything going on outside the room) and he started yelling and she started knocking and the moment was ruined as they both busted in the room. Oh well, it was a good idea in theory.

Chloe was mad anyway because apparently she wanted it to be a girl. Until now, I didn't think she cared as she didn't want me to have another baby anyway lol. It is SO much fun having a preteen. I am learning sooo much about her and myself. Things like it isn't really a good idea to be a moody pregnant woman while trying to deal with a cranky 11 year old. We are like oil and water. I keep thinking it has to get better. She and I actually get along pretty good compared to how she and my husband are with each other. He just doesn't get it. I don't think he has ever been around teenage girls and he is learning the hard way. I keep trying to explain (tell,yell,command) to him that he shouldn't take everything personally and that he needs to relax a little bit and give her some space. That seems to be one of our biggest arguments. Any suggestion s on how to deal with this?

On another note, I have finally started taking cake/cookie orders again. I was worried there for a while that I wouldn't be able to do any baking while I was pregnant because for the longest time the smell of buttercream would send me running. I have done a few cakes over the past two months and a have two due in the next two weeks. I will try to get some pictures up soon. For now, I am going to finish American Idol and head to bed. Good night to you all!

perfume in my eyes

2010-02-20T17:31:00.000-05:00

I spent most of my morning holding Harrison down while trying to flush his eyes with water. He snuck a bottle of perfume past me this morning and ran out of my bedroom. He just shut my door when I heard him scream. Yep. He sprayed it in his eye. I opened the door and he was standing there crying trying to hand me the perfume. I rush him into the bathroom, strip him down and put him in the tub(this seems to be a reoccuring theme for me). He would not allow me to get ANY water into his eye. Monty was at work so I was alone in this which I do not suggest. I fought with him for a good 30 minutes trying to pry his little eye open while he yelled "please don't put water in my eye mommy. just put the towel on it" over and over again. It seemed the only relief he could get was when he had his eye closed with the towel pressed against it.

I finally got him quiet enough to get the doctor on the phone and they suggested I take him to the childrens hospital emergency room which was 40 minutes away. They were concerned that because he was still crying, the alcohol in the perfume might have scratched his cornea. Chloe had a friend over and we were all in our pajamas so we began rushing around trying to get dressed. I got Monty on the phone and he was able to come home for a minute. Harrison seemed to be feeling better but would not open his eye and upon trying to even remove the towel he was holding up to his eye he would start screaming again. Monty finally got his boss on the phone and was able to come with us so we headed out.

Harrison at this point decided he felt better and had both eyes open and said he did not need to go to the doctor. We decided to go on just to be safe. This however was a bad idea. We had only been on the road 5 minutes when my car began to overheat. Oh yes. I was soo happy. I was driving at the time and Monty had me pull over because the engine started making a really loud noise. We were on a backroad trying to get to the interstate and the first driveway I came to was not much more than a clearing in the brush. We sat there for a good 30 minutes trying to decide whether we should try to drive it back home or call a tow truck. Fortunately, the man who lived there worked in an autoshop and his son called him on the phone to see what we should do. He said we would probably be okay to drive the car to his shop which was just down the road. My dear husband thought it best to get it home and deal with it on Monday since the shop we usually go to wasn't open today. It was at this point that he decided he should drive.... and he backed my car straight into a ditch. mmmhhhmm. not only in a ditch but up over the large concrete/steele rod barrier that was there to keep cars out of that ditch. It was at this point that I began yelling and crying almost hysterically. lol . Chloe's poor little friend in the back seat will probably never come to our house again.

Fortunately it was mostly cosmetic damage although the running board got jammed up so bad that the back door gets caught on it. Can you see that I am having a great day? lol. I don't know if I want to talk to much less see my husband anymore today. But I am stuck with him. And tomorrow is his day off. Hooray....will we survive?

Harrison just woke from his nap and he says his eye feels great and he can see out of it so I am not sure what to do. He is too young to tell me if his vision is cloudy but there isnt any redness or swelling so I guess I'm gonna give it 24 hours and see how it looks then. Well I hope you all are having a better weekend than us. Talk to you soon!!

Mommy Im Sick...

2010-02-16T22:49:00.000-05:00

My week has been filled with vomit and for once it was not my own. Monday started off pretty smooth and stayed that way until mid-afternoon when Chloe yelled down the stairs "MOM!! Harrison puked on my couch!!!" I ran up the stairs to see harrison sitting on the little pink couch in her room with his hands straight out in front of him. He and the couch AND the curtains were covered. I mean completely covered in puke. It was horrible. He was crying, chloe was laughing/shrieking and my dear husband didn't move off the couch. I yelled for him and told him that I needed help. We each took an end and carried harrison to the bathtub. I thought Harrison had gagged on the candy he snuck out of my purse but it turns out that my poor son who has a weak stomach happened to turn and look right as the dog had an accident on Chloe's floor. He threw up immediately. And so the week began. On Tuesday Harrison woke at 7 a.m. calling for his dad. Monty went in to check on him and soon started yelling for me. Harrison was once again sick and this time, he threw up right on Monty. I spent most of the day carrying him to and from the bathtub,stripping him of his clothes and cleaning him up. He was so pitiful and everytime I would get him cleaned up, he would say "mommy I'm sorry i frew up on the blanket/couch/floor/you....." he melts my heart. I managed to keep him drinking sprite all day so the cleaning up was fairly easy. My hubby got home that evening and while I was upstairs changing sheets(again) I guess he asked Harrison if he was hungry and told him he needed to try to eat a sandwich. I made it downstairs just in time to see Harrisons eyes get real big as he threw his hand over his mouth and threw up an entire pb & j sandwich. DIS-GUS-TING.

Wednesday started off really good as harrison seemed to feel great. Monty however came dragging in the door around 10 am and went straight to the bathroom. He was sick with it for 2 days. yikes. I slept on the couch. It is a lot harder to take care of a grown man than a baby in my opinion. I must admit that I didnt really take very good care of him. I brought him cold drinks and just tried to stay out of his way. He is a lot better at the "in sickness" than me. So the week was finally over..well so I thought until my poor chloe started feeling bad Thursday night and actually came in at 4 am friday morning to tell me that she had thrown up. She spent Friday and Saturday in bed and the bathroom but thankfully was better by Sunday.

So that was my week. Sorry these past few posts have been so gross but I'm here to share it all. The good,bad & ugly and hopefully you will stick around to see things get better.

One last thing....if any of you are pregnant or nursing, you can log on to http://www.uddercovers.com/ right now and get a nursing cover for free minus shipping with the code "onefree". Im not sure how long this promotion is going on but ordered one a few days ago and am super excited to get it. Hope you all are staying well and keeping your food down!

Puking my life away

2010-02-08T01:43:00.000-05:00

Whew! I am so glad that is over. Hopefully some of you noticed that I have been gone. Maybe even hoping I would come back soon to share more crazy stories with you...I did read your comments so I know some of you are keeping up and I really appreciate all of the well wishes. I don't even know where to begin with the insanity I just went through. My last post was short and simply informed you of the morning sickness that had accompanied my pregnancy so far. It was bad but I thought it would pass in a few weeks and we could move on like normal.I was wrong. Very, very wrong. 11/2009-2/2010 will forever be known as the worst months of my life! I will try not to go into too much detail but the 3 weeks following my last post I lost 16lbs and was in the hospital half a dozen times. I was so ill that I could barely move by myself.I would actually get motion sickness when I would sit up. I couldn't even keep water down and kept being hospitalized for dehydration. I was so sick that I started pulling muscles in my stomach from dry heaving so hard. yuk. Aren't you so glad you joined me today? Don't go away! please! I will keep it short and to the point while hopefully sharing a laugh or two.

So, I was finally diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum or HG for short, which is basically a severe form of morning sickness with unrelenting, excessive nausea and/or vomiting. I honestly felt like I was going to die. The pain was not simply physical but mental as well. I remember lying in bed wondering how I would make it though the day. How I could make it another week. I couldn't take care of my children or myself. It really started getting my down and began affecting my moods. I lost interest in doing anything but sleeping because that was the only time I got relief from the pain. I spent most of my days tossing and turning in bed trying to get my mind off of my cramping stomach & constant nausea while hoping Harrison's brain wasn't turning to mush from watching hour after hour of cartoons. He seems to have survived and somehow through it all learned how to spell his name and count to 20. Unfortunately, I don't think I was responsible for teaching him either one. From me, he learned the importance of properly holding your hair back when throwing up and that when mommy is lying in the bathroom floor she probably can't get you more juice for a while.

My doctor finally decided that I wan't going to be able to keep the pill form of the medicine I needed down and set me up with a home health nurse who came to the house and hooked up a small machine that pumped the meds straight into my stomach. I must say that after only a few days, I began to feel a difference. I was able to sip on liquids and not immediately throw them up and after only a week and a half, I was able to move around without getting motion sickness. I finally started getting some of my energy back after about 2 weeks and was able to go visit with some family for a few hours on Christmas day. I was told that I may have to keep the pump in throughout the entire pregnancy but there was a possibility that I would start feeling better once I hit my second trimester. 13 weeks came and went with no change but I was at least able to move around and the vomiting was somewhat under control so I wasn't complaining. I am now 17 weeks and I was finally stable enough to take the pump out this past Friday. Hooray! I have only felt nauseous a few times but I think I can handle it. The baby is still doing ok and I have finally started to gain a little bit of weight.I actually started feeling it kick last week. I go back in a few weeks to do the ultrasound and we will finally find out the sex. I am so excited.

Sorry if this post was a little bit long and maybe boring but this has had such a huge impact on my life that I really wanted to share it with you all. Maybe some of you have experienced the same thing or are maybe going through it right now. If so, let me know. I would love to talk to you and offer some encouragement if needed. Hope you all are staying healthy! I have lots of exciting things to catch you all up on and look forward to seeing what you all have been up to as well!

PREGNANT

2009-11-19T21:47:00.001-05:00

So I am pregnant! Hooray! And I can't seem to do anything but throw up. All day. Every day. Its all I can do to make sure my 2 year old is fed and changed. I'm guessing God allows us to forget all the misery that comes with the joys of pregnancy so we will actually do it again. I really,truly don't remember it being this bad. I am 6 weeks along and am praying that the good times come here pretty soon. So for the time being, I will probably be MIA. Anybody have any good home remedies for the nausea/vomiting? I would greatly appreciate it! In case I'm not back before, Happy Thanksgiving!

Party Time-Batman cake

2009-11-13T23:59:00.002-05:00

My nephew turned five this week and I had the pleasure of making the cake for his Batman themed bash. The party was held at Pump in Up which is this really cool inflatable party place in Chattanooga. Harrison and Chloe alike had a blast and were looking like they might keel over from exhaustion after a mere 30 minutes of running around.

Janine and I met two weeks ago to discuss ideas for the cake and she found a few pictures online that she and Andrew(the birthday boy) really liked. She was expecting up to 30 people for the party so I decided to do a 10 and 6 inch stacked cake. Andrew is really in to batman right now and I was super excited to do something a little bit different. Especially since Janine wasn't super picky about what she wanted. The inspiration for his cake was found here on flickr but I changed it up a bit and added a few elements of my own.

these little guys remind me of the old batman cartoons with the "BLAM" and "POW" popping up everywhere

I baked a dozen cupcakes with some leftover batter and had some really cute cupcake wraps that matched the theme perfectly. Makes me think of gotham city with them all around the cake.

Andrew's expression when he saw the cake was priceless. That is my favorite part of the whole process. I love making people happy and who doesn't love cake?

I love this one..he is looking so lovingly at that cake!

sneaky pants over here snagged a cupcake and had most of the icing gone by the time anyone noticed. His face was so yellow that it looked like he had jaundice.

After we all scarfed down our cake and ice cream it was time for presents. I love the expressions on all of their little faces. Andrew looks very pleased with his booty but what cracks me up is the reaction of the two other cuties. Harrison seemed equally amazed at this gift. It is so fun to catch things like that on camera.

Overall it was a great party and Andrew came up to me before he left and said "thank you aunt kristy for making my cake." He is such a sweetheart.

and on a final note....

What I Love About Sundays

2009-11-08T22:51:00.000-05:00

My beautiful babies...

Pumkins & Nemo

2009-11-05T23:37:00.001-05:00

We spent the weekend before last running the roads. Monty was out of town and we needed to get our pumpkins so we went to the local pumpkin patch with our neighbors and their kids. The 20 minute car ride was actually quite relaxing which is not a word I ever use to describe time spent in the car. Living in the South, I get kind of used to the awesome show when the leaves turn but that cute windy road we took was absolutely amazing. We had to wait in line for a few minutes to buy tickets so I of course thought "picture time" and forced the boys to pose for me.

Our neighbor's three year old Logan is the cutie on the right and he was not feeling the photo opp. We finally got to the stand to buy tickets and realized that we only had about an hour before we needed to leave for Nemo on Ice and decided we should come back the next day so the kids could take their time and have a little fun. I was able to grab a few more pictures before we left.

My two little cuties

Before I told them we were leaving without a pumpkin..

sidetracked by leaves, melt down averted

We then headed to Chattanooga and Harrison was a complete chatterbox. He was soo excited to see Nemo but I don't think he has even seen the movie. The drive seemed to take forever this time because we were so ready for the show. We were able to get really good seats and I had set aside a little bit of money so I could get the kids an overpriced but really cute Nemo souvenir. I don't think I have ever seen my child sit as still as he did during that show and it was for such a long time! I wish I could bring some of those skaters home with me. I could get so much done.

Plus how cute is this guy?

All sugared up and ready for the second act to start

happy kiddos

cool glow in the dark fish

How cute is this little octopus? Why can't we find halloween costumes like that?

Funny looking Nemo

Happy Dory, happy boy

Vanilla Buttermilk Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

2009-11-02T00:36:00.000-05:00

One of my best friends is getting married in a few weeks and I had the pleasure of doing some cupcakes for her lingerie shower. I know she likes my white cake but I wanted to stray from my normal recipe and try something new. I found this recipe for a vanilla buttermilk cake on a few different sites and it sounded so delicious, I knew I had to try it. I was afraid from looking at the batter that they were going to be too yellow in color but they baked up beautifully and turned out a lightly golden color. I have been looking for a new buttercream recipe as well and found a really yummy one that I thought would pair really well with the buttermilk cake. It comes from Elizabeth Faulkner's Demolition Desserts which is a book that has so many amazing recipes that I want to try them all. This buttercream is quite smooth ,super easy to make & pipes really well.

I am also quite retarded and didn't think much of the kosher salt that it called for when I was looking over the ingredients so I didn't pick up any at the store. When it came time to make the icing, I figured that regular salt would work the same. Boy was I wrong. The icing tasted great at first, then when you got a big mouthful of it, the salty flavor was enough to knock you out. I didn't really notice it until I got to the shower and tried a whole cupcake with the heaping mound of icing. It wasn't horrible exactly, actually most everyone loved them but I did find one with a tossed in the wastebasket in the bathroom and it was missing one tiny little bite. I can't help but laugh. I'm learning! I will definately pay more attention to the ingredients list and do my research.

Here are a few pictures of the finished cupcakes. I made 2 dozen total and custom made the little pink S candies in honor of Lauren's new last name to put on 12 of them. I filled half a dozen cupcakes with chocolate ganache and topped those with silver sanding sugar then I used a large star tip and pink flakes to dress up the other half of the cupcakes. It is amazing how that one little tip can make your cupcakes look so much more professional! I love it!

Vanilla Buttermilk Cake- makes an 8-inch layer cake or 24 cupcakes

adapted from Sky High: Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes by Alicia Huntsman and Peter Wynne

4 whole large eggs

2 egg yolks

2 t vanilla extract

1 1/4 c buttermilk

3 c cake flour

2 c sugar

4 1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

8 oz unsalted butter, room temperature

-Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter or spray the bottom and sides of three 8-inch cake pans. Line with parchment rounds and grease.

-Place the eggs and the yolks in a medium bowl. Add the vanilla and 1/4 cup of buttermilk. Whisk well and set aside.

-Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in the bowl of a mixer; whisk to blend. Add the remaining 1 cup of buttermilk and the butter to the dry ingredients and with the mixer on low speed, blend together. Raise the mixer to medium speed and beat until light fluffy (about 2 minutes).

-Add the egg mixture in three additions, scrapping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Don’t overmix.

-Divide the batter among the three pans. Bake the cake layers for 28-32 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake layers cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Turn out the cakes onto a wire rack and remove the paper from the bottoms. Cool completely before filling and frosting.

* this recipe made almost 3 dozen cupcakes

Vanilla Buttercream

as adapted from Demolition Desserts

Makes about 2 cups

Ingredients:

4 oz. unsalted softened butter

2 1/2 c. or 10 oz. powdered sugar

1/2 t. kosher salt

1 T. plus 1 t. whole milk

1 t. pure vanilla extract

1 t. fresh lemon juice (I put 1/2 t.)

Directions:

In a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter & salt for about 30 seconds and then add half of the powdered sugar and the milk to the butter and beat again until combined. Scrape down the bowl. Add the rest of the powdered sugar, the vanilla, and the lemon juice and beat until combined. Scrape down the bowl again. Beat on high speed for 5-6 minutes or until the frosting is fluffy.

*I doubled this recipe and had just enough to ice 2 dozen cupcakes.

Let me know what you guys think about these recipes! have a great week!

What I Love About Sundays

2009-11-01T22:52:00.001-05:00

We had so much fun on Halloween. I'll write more about it this week but for now, here is your weekly pic! Harrison was Woody from Toy Story and Monty was a football player. Harrison saw the helmet in the floorboard and decided he needed to wear it as well. Nevermind that it weighed as much as he does and that he was stumbling all over the place. Ha! This little boy that answered the door didn't know what to think!

Livestrong Challenge Austin 2009

2009-10-28T00:04:00.000-04:00

My internet was down for 2 days! I was going crazy. I could access my blog on my phone but I couldn't upload a picture so I was especially upset about missing my Sunday post. The good news is that Monty(my hubby)is finally home. hooray! The kids and I were pleasantly surprised when he came home a bit early last night. I wasn't expecting him for another hour or so and as I was coming out of Harrison's room he was almost to the top of the stairs and I almost pushed him back down them. He was exhausted so I didn't get to hear too much about his trip but he did show me a few pictures.

I don't think I mentioned it but he was in Texas for the Livestrong Challenge. He has been biking for years and is a huge Lance Armstrong fan so he was thrilled to have the chance to go down to Austin and ride in the 2009 Livestrong Challenge. He left on Wed. with his brother, mom and pops and they arrived in Austin on Friday morning. He told me that there were tons of people there but it was surprisingly calm and orderly. He got registered and went around to visit the different vendors stands. He was super excited to go to Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop which is owned by Lance and the women's breast cancer awareness tent.

We have had some close calls with cancer and this is a cause that is very dear to our hearts. We really hope to take the whole family down next year so we all can be involved. Monty ran in the 5k run on Saturday morning along with about 2500 other people. He finished in just under 25 minutes and was able to relax the rest of the day as the bike portion didn't start until the next day. Sunday morning came early as they had to check in at 7 a.m. for the 8 o'clock start. He biked the 45 miles in 2 hours and 40 minutes. It wasn't a race so each entrant kept their own times but he was pretty happy with his time. He stopped a few times to help his brother who had a horrible time with cramping and at one point couldn't even bend his leg. They both pulled through and crossed the finish line. I am so proud of them both.

As I said before, Chloe and I want to go next year and do at least the bike portion. The challenge is open to all ages and they have everything from a 5k walk/run to a 90mile bike race. The only problem we might encounter is that each entrant is required to come up with a $250 donation to enter. I guess if we have a year, it shouldn't be too hard.

Hope you all are having a great week!

Time for a challenge

2009-10-24T00:41:00.000-04:00

My husband left on Wednesday for Texas. This is the first time he has been gone for more than a day and to tell you the truth, I was pretty nervous about him leaving. It is strange how dependent you can become on a person. I spent an entire afternoon worrying about him going and wondering what I was going to do while he was gone. I am a 30 year old mother of 2 and I was worried that I would be lost without my husband around. I suppose that is a good thing but none the less it is strange and silly that I felt so helpless.
So here I am, two days into it and things are great. Of course, most of you out there could have probably told me that I was worried over nothing. It has been nice actually, having him gone. I have been able to spend a lot of time with the kids and we have had a really good time. Chloe and I had stayed up kinda late watching tv last night and had a sleepover in my bed. I forgot how much that kid kicks and punches while she sleeps. She is pretty strong for such a small girl. She of course wanted to sleep in there again tonight but she had to promise to at least start out on the far, far side of the bed.
I have been reminded in the past few days of how much fun my daughter is. Although she has attitude for days sometimes, she really is a great kid and I love hanging out with her. I really need to get better at telling her that. My technique is way off. I'm afraid I'm always using my crazy mom voice and getting on to her for things instead of telling her how proud of her I am and encouraging her. I vow to get better! Starting tomorrow!
We actually are going to a pumpkin patch tomorrow to pick out our pumkins and then we are going to come home and carve them before heading to Chattanooga to see Nemo on Ice. I can't believe the tickets cost so much money! Fortunately, Monty's brother was able to get us a discount on the tickets. I think Harrison is gonna love it and Chloe seems pretty excited too. I'm glad shes not too old for this stuff just yet. I know I probably only have a year or two left before she doesn't want to do anything with us anymore. I remember when my older sister started that and I just didn't understand it. I don't remember ever feeling that way. I always liked spending time with the family. Of course my parents probably have a different story. I need to call my mom and get the scoop on how much of a pain I was at 11 years old but it is late and I need to get to bed. Busy day tomorrow!

Firty-one

2009-10-19T22:49:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was my birthday and according to my son I turned "firty-one". It is a strange feeling to be thirty-one. Not barely thirty,still pushing or rather clinging to that late 20s thing but actually in my thirties. This may take a while to get used to. The kids gave me their handmade cards after dinner and I love seeing their proud faces when they give me things they make. it makes my heart swell up and I get this warm, heavy feeling in my chest. I guess that is what true love is. Well more than true love, a mothers love. nothing in this world compares to this feeling. I am so lucky.

Hand Cramps

2009-10-18T22:29:00.002-04:00

So I am trying to get off the ground with my couponing. I have a binder loaded with baseball card inserts,divider tabs,scissors & pens. Now all I need is to fill it with my coupons. I have clipped and cut and sorted for what seems like hours and this pile of inserts doesn't seem to get any smaller. My hand is KILLING me. Wish I could work these scissors with both hands. I guess thats what I get for not clipping them from the beginning. I think I got a little ahead of myself when I decided to start clipping coupons "for real" because I started buying 2 and 3 papers a weekend, pulling the inserts out and then stacking them in places that I would inevitably forget about until Sunday would roll around again and I would go buy more. At this point, I still was unsure what to do with all of these coupons but boy was I excited to have them.

So now I have them clipped and somewhat organized but I still have to stuff them all in their individual little sleeves. What I really want to do is put the whole mess away and go to bed. Alas, I must soldier on if I want to hit the stores this week. It seems a little daunting to think about matching all of the coupons with what is on sale and trying to decide what stores are worth hitting up. With a toddler in tow, the fewer the stops the better. I really don't have to do much work now that I have discovered two amazing websites. The ladies at http://www.southernsavers.com/ & http://www.time2saveworkshops.com/ pretty much do all of the work for me. All I have to do is click a few buttons and they have all the latest sales matched up with what coupons work and there are even links to printable ones. They even give you scenarios showing the best way to use your coupons at the drugstores where you can get things for free almost every week.

I am still trying to get a system going for my drugstore coupons. I think I may get a smaller accordian file since I will probably only have a handful in there from week to week and just keep my binder for my grocery stores. Now the big problem is what to do with all of these inserts I haven't cut yet. I even found some in the garage the other day. Can't tell you how they got there or how long they were there because they were expired. Such a waste. Looking forward though, I will figure this out and hopefully soon I can share with you some amazing savings!

What do you use to organize your coupons?

What I Love About Sundays

2009-10-18T21:42:00.000-04:00

Chloe performed with her dance team at the Apple Festival this year. It was soooo cold! We definately were not prepared for it but we had a good time anyway. They had just about every kind of apple available fixed every way possible.There were lots of other good treats as well. I was hoping to try a fried twinkie before we left but I was so cold all I could think about was getting home and into some cozy sweats. I don't think we are going to actually have a fall this year. I think it has skipped on into winter and that makes me sad. The months of September,October & November are my favorites mostly for the weather. Oh well, I guess we will just have to make the most of it. I will miss my flip-flops though.

What I Love About Sundays

2009-10-11T23:03:00.000-04:00

Chloe and her buddy Leah decided to go "ghost hunting" and came down the stairs in their all black get-ups. I remember doing crazy things like this when I was her age. She cracks me up.

new name

2009-10-08T18:39:00.001-04:00

So I foinally decided on a name for my little cake business. I'm not telling just yet as I'm still working out the details with the website and liscensing but I will let you all know soon! It is such a relief to have finally decided on something. I'm not kidding, I used to spend hours at night unable to fall asleep because I couldn't stop thinking about it. I have little notes strewn everywhere with names and ideas on them.
I'm sure Monty is just glad I finally stopped asking him what he thought of them. There were many nights that I wld wake him from a deep sleep with my newest revelation of the most perfect name for a bakery. He would sleepily say that sounds good and go back to sleep never recalling the conversation the next day.
Anyhow, I'm trying to get a logo designed and will hopefully get that website up soon. I will be sure to let you all know when I'm done.Have a great day!

What I Love about Sundays

2009-10-04T22:01:00.000-04:00

cake,cake,cake

2009-10-03T23:33:00.002-04:00

I had two cake orders this week and they kept me busy. They were both on the creative side which I love. It gives me a chance to try new things. Our good friends Aaron and Sarah had me do an army theme cake for little Landon. He is all about the G I Joe stuff right now and his face upon seeing the cake was priceless. His jaw literally dropped to the floor. He goes "WOW that's a cool cake!" He is so cute. That really is the best part of the job to me. I love being able to bring little bits of joy to others in the form of cake. I had a wedding cake to deliver this afternoon. The couple had a destination wedding and were celebrating with a reception for the friends and family who couldn't make the wedding. They seemed to be a fun couple and wanted a cake that "didn't really look like a wedding cake," so I did a 3 tier square with lots of circles in the wedding colors. I was really happy with the way it turned out. Hopefully they enjoyed it as well. I didn't get home from delivering it until 8 this evening. I had to stop by RiteAid to get some free stuff before weekely sale was over. I was able to get a fusion power razor,scope outlast toothpaste and an oralB toothbrush for free after coupons and rebates. I am getting quite addicted to this freebie game. lol. A neighbor stopped by earlier and I laughed while explaining what I was doing surrounded by piles of coupons, envelopes and a huge paper cutter. Monty said "yep, this is married life. This is what we do." I was cracking up.

We had a minor setback this afternoon when I was about to leave. I noticed that my keys were not in fact on the hook where they belong. I searched and searched and I finally found them in the back seat...of my locked car. I was less than thrilled. It only took an hour for a locksmith to get there. an HOUR. What if I had locked the cakes in the car? They would have been a melted mess. I have got to find my spare set. once the guy finally did show up he no more than stepped out of his van and put what looked like a huge blood pressure pump in my door and my alarm was going off. Glorious! and all I had owed this man who saved the day was 40 dollars. wait, what!? 40 bucks you say? oh yes, he made 40 dollars in less than five minutes. I told monty we had to get one of those pumps!

I'm still here!

2009-10-01T23:42:00.001-04:00

Please don't give up on me. I know I haven't posted in over a week. It has been insane around here. Harrison was sick then Chloe was sick and I have had 6 last minute cake orders. Two of which are due this weekend and the others are for a wedding next weekend. Yikes. I haven't had time to do anything but bake. I actually had to miss one of Chloe's performances for the first time. Turns out,tonight was the last game of the season. She made sure to lay on the guilt really thick. She loves to give me a hard time. I really hope I can carve out some one on one time with her soon. My friend Laura invited me to see Casting Crowns in Chattanooga on the 10th and I think ill ask her if she would like to go. It would be fun to have a girls night. She has been working so hard lately. I feel bad for her. She has so much homework every night and doesn't get home from practice until 5:30 and games until 9:30. I don't miss that at all. Anyhow, enough of that for today.I'm going to try to get some pics uploaded soon. Lots of cakes and cookies and cupcakes. Yum. Hope you all have been doing well and I promise not to stay gone that long again!

Long Week

2009-09-24T07:47:00.001-04:00

These past two weeks have been so crazy. I think it has a lot to do with the rain. I finally got caught up on laundry which NEVER happens and I was able to spend a little time working on cake stuff. yay. Thankfully all of this happened before Harrison got sick. We went to his Wee Gym class at the YMCA and as we were leaving, I noticed that he felt hot. A quick check of his temp when we got home revealed that he had a fever of 102.4! His pediatrician said to try to get it down with tylenol and if it wouldn't break, I should take him to the ER or bring him in to the office the next morning. Fortunatly, the medicine worked and as soon as his fever was gone, he was back to normal. He had fever on and of the next day but the doc didn't seem too concerned because it stayed down if Harrison was taking tylenol.

So during his bath that night I noticed a really bad rash on his bottom. Five full tubes of boudreauxs butt paste can attest to the fact that he never gets diaper rash. As I was lubing him down with his array of sensetive skin/eczema preventing/scar healing lotions I noticed the tiny red spots on the back of his knees...then his ankle...then his foot. This is not good. It was at this point that I did what I always do-yell for my husband. He agrees with my expert diagnosis that this is in fact very very bad and we should wrap Harrison up in his towel and run him across the street to our good friend and nurse in training Sarah. She will have the answer!!! After searching many large books and coming up with nothing, we turned to the trusty old internet( i love you internet...you hardly ever let me down) and within minutes, she had an answer. Hand,Foot & Mouth disease...wait, what!?! Are you kidding me? That just sounded horrible. Apparently it is just a virus and will run its course. The rash does not itch and the fever only lasts the first 48 hours. So I made him an appointment for Monday just to make sure.

Meanwhile, we had a pretty good weekend. The fair was in town,we went to the teddy bear picnic at the library and stopped by the family expo at the museum. It was quite eventful ,but by Sunday afternoon, we were all ready for the weekend to come back around so we could just relax.

2009-09-23T07:56:00.001-04:00

I don't remember where I found this (let me know if anyone out there knows!) but it really made an impression on me.I told Chloe about it and it gave me a wonderful opportunity to talk with her about speaking to people about Christ. Please take a minute to turn off your phone,tv or whatever and really give this story your attention.

17-year-old Brian Moore had only a short time to write something for a
class. The subject was what Heaven was like. "I wowed 'em," he later told
his father, Bruce. "It's a killer. It's the bomb. It's the best thing I ever

wrote." It also was the last.

Brian's parents had forgotten about the essay when a cousin found it
while cleaning out the teenager's locker at Teays Valley High School in
Pickaway County. Brian had been dead only hours, but his parents desperately

wanted every piece of his life near them-notes from classmates and
teachers, his homework.

Only two months before, he had handwritten the essay about encountering
Jesus in a file room full of cards detailing every moment of the teen's
life. But it was only after Brian's death that Beth and Bruce Moore realized

that their son had described his view of heaven. It makes such an impact
that people want to share it. You feel like you are there." Mr. Moore
said.

Brian Moore died May 27, 1997, the day after Memorial Day. He was driving
home from a friend's house when his car went off Bulen-Pierce Road in
Pickaway County and struck a utility pole. He emerged from the wreck
unharmed but stepped on a downed power line and was electrocuted.

The Moores framed a copy of Brian's essay and hung it among the family
portraits in the living room. "I think God used him to make a point. I think

we were meant to find it and make something out of it, " Mrs. Moore said of
the essay. She and her husband want to share their son's vision of life
after death. "I'm happy for Brian. I know he's in heaven. I know I'll
see him.

Brian's Essay:

The Room...

In that place between wakefulness and dreams, I found myself in the room.
There were no distinguishing features except for the one wall covered with
small index card files. They were like the ones in libraries that list
titles by author or subject in alphabetical order.

But these files, which stretched from floor to ceiling and seemingly
endless in either direction, had very different headings.

As I drew near the wall of files, the first to catch my attention was one
that read "Girls I have liked." I opened it and began flipping through the
cards. I quickly shut it, shocked to realize that I recognized the names
written on each one. And then without being told, I knew exactly where I
was.

This lifeless room with its small files was a crude catalog system for my
life. Here were written the actions of my every moment, big and small, in a
detail my memory couldn't match. A sense of wonder and curiosity, coupled
with horror, stirred within me as I began randomly opening files and
exploring their content. Some brought joy and sweet memories; others a sense

of shame and regret so intense that I would look over my shoulder to see
if anyone was watching.

A file named "Friends" was next to one marked "Friends I have betrayed."
The titles ranged from the mundane to the outright weird. "Books I Have
Read," "Lies I Have Told," "Comfort I have Given," "Jokes I Have Laughed
at." Some were almost hilarious in their exactness: "Things I've yelled at
my brothers." Others I couldn't laugh at: "Things I Have Done in My Anger",
"Things I Have Muttered Under My Breath at My Parents." I never ceased
to be surprised by the contents.

Often there were many more cards than I expected. Sometimes fewer than I
hoped. I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the life I had lived.
Could it be possible that I had the time in my years to fill each of these
thousands or even millions of cards? But each card confirmed this truth.
Each was written in my own handwriting. Each signed with my signature.

When I pulled out the file marked "TV Shows I have watched," I realized
the files grew to contain their contents. The cards were packed tightly,
and yet after two or three yards, I hadn't found the end of the file. I shut
it, shamed, not so much by the quality of shows but more by the vast time I
knew that file represented.

When I came to a file marked "Lustful Thoughts," I felt a chill run
through my body. I pulled the file out only an inch, not willing to test
its size, and drew out a card. I shuddered at its detailed content. I felt
sick to think that such a moment had been recorded. An almost animal rage
broke on me. One thought dominated my mind: No one must ever see these
cards! No one must ever see this room! I have to destroy them!" In insane frenzy I
yanked the file out. Its size didn't matter now. I had to empty it and burn
the cards. But as I took it at one end and began pounding it on the floor, I
could not dislodge a single card. I became desperate and pulled out a card,
only to find it as strong as steel when I tried to tear it.

Defeated and utterly helpless, I returned the file to its slot. Leaning
my forehead against the wall, I let out a long, self-pitying sigh. And then
I saw it.. The title bore "People I Have Shared the Gospel With."

The handle was brighter than those around it, newer, almost unused. I
pulled on its handle and a small box not more than three inches long fell
into my hands. I could count the cards it contained on one hand. And then
the tears came. I began to weep. Sobs so deep that they hurt. They started
in my stomach and shook through me.

I fell on my knees and cried. I cried out of shame, from the overwhelming
shame of it all. The rows of file shelves swirled in my tear-filled eyes.
No one must ever, ever know of this room. I must lock it up and hide the key.

But then as I pushed away the tears, I saw Him.

No, please not Him. Not here. Oh, anyone but Jesus. I watched
helplessly as He began to open the files and read the cards. I couldn't bear
to watch His response. And in the moments I could bring myself to look at His face, I
saw a sorrow deeper than my own. He seemed to intuitively go to the worst
boxes. Why did He have to read every one? Finally He turned and looked at me
from across the room. He looked at me with pity in His eyes. But this was a
pity that didn't anger me. I dropped my head, covered my face with my hands
and began to cry again. He walked over and put His arm around me. He could
have said so many things. But He didn't say a word. He just cried with
me.

Then He got up and walked back to the wall of files. Starting at one end
of the room, He took out a file and, one by one, began to sign His name over
mine on each card. "No!" I shouted rushing to Him. All I could find to say
was "No, no," as I pulled the card from Him. His name shouldn't be on these
cards. But there it was, written in red so rich, so dark, so alive. The name
of Jesus covered mine. It was written with His blood. He gently took the
card back. He smiled a sad smile and began to sign the cards. I don't think
I'll ever understand how He did it so quickly, but the next instant it
seemed I heard Him close the last file and walk back to my side. He placed
His hand on my shoulder and said, "It is finished."

I stood up, and He led me out of the room. There was no lock on its door.
There were still cards to be written.

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." - Phil. 4:13
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes
in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."

rainy days

2009-09-22T00:18:00.001-04:00

I have been a little more than overwhelmed lately by my responsibilities at home. Not to say that I don't love being able to stay home and raise my son and daughter but some of the duties that come along with it are really getting to me. I am in an emotional battle with myself almost everyday over the fact that my home always seems to be a wreck and yet a lot of the time I just dont feel like cleaning it up. It hasn't always been this way. Well I have always been a procrastinator but I have become exceedingly lazy over the past few years. I just don't have the drive to do things like I used to. I don't feel like I'm accomplishing anything anyway. I clean,cook,play with harrison and try to spend some time on the computer. Everyday it is the same and I feel like the days have just been rolling by. Does it even matter if the dishes are always out of the sink? If every speck of dust is off the shelves? Don't get me wrong, I do take pride in my home (I try to anyway) but it just gets so monotonous and we don't have company all that often. I find myself thinkin that things can wait. I get sidetracked so easily anyway so I start something and I will think of something I was supposed to do earlier so I run off and leave clothes in the dryer, the vacuum in the living room, a pile of clothes half ironed....

It reminds me of a children's book I used to read about a stork who was always "putting everything off until tomorrow".He left dishes and food lying aroung and of course, I'm sure you all know the moral of the story as well as I do, but I am seemingly immune to retaining the lessons I have learned in life. I let things go and let things go and then I blow up because it looks like a tornado has hit the entire bottom level of our house. I know that it is my fault for allowing Harrison to keep so many toys downstairs and I've never really forced Chloe to take her things straight to her bedroom when she gets home so they are always right in front of the door. Seriously. Like sometimes you cant even open it because her things are lying there. I of course assume she realizes that this makes me crazy (which she doesn't) and I end up getting on to her about it because I'm so mad instead of maybe taking the time to nicely remind her to take her things up to her room, or at least contain it to a small area. Maybe one day she will remember to do what I ask and I will remember that she can't read my mind.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that I subscribe to an amazing site called Proverbs31 ministries and just as I was approaching a nervous breakdown, I woke up a few days ago and found THIS in my inbox.

I am 30 years old and God continues to amaze me with what He does for me. Even the small things. He is there with me always and reminds me that I am not alone, that I am normal for feeling the way I do and that no matter what He will never give me more than I can handle or let me be tempted beyond what I can bear. Check out I Cor. 10:12-14 for the real deal. Have a great day!

What I Love about Sundays

2009-09-20T22:09:00.000-04:00

Teddy Bear Picnic

COUPONS!

2009-09-15T22:43:00.000-04:00

I attended my first coupon class today and it was so much fun!! I have been more of a voyeur than anything of the local couponers and have really wanted to get involved but I needed a push. That came tonight when I was picking up Chloe from the library and saw a cute little sign saying "couponers this way" so I followed the signs and found a whole room full of women exchanging coupons. Little did I know, the meeting was put together by a super cool gal named Jamie from Chattanooga Cheapskate. They meet in the Cleveland Public Library every other Tuesday to swap coupons and tell about the latest deals they have found. All it took is one meeting and I'm hooked. Two weeks seems like such a long time to wait to meet back up with everyone! If you like to save money at all, you should def. check out her site. She has tons pf great information on how to make the most of your money plus her blog is really cute. So I have already met two sahms who want to get a moms group together in the Cleveland area and I met yet another one tonight. I am so excited how things are starting to come together. I have been stressing lately and have really felt the need to find some friends and get out of the house. I have been cooped up with Harrison for a while, I hope these ladies can handle me. So if there are any Cleveland ladies out there reading along, we are looking for some stay at home moms who want to get together and let the kids play while having a little grown up conversation. Hopefully we can get some sort of schedule soon with times to meet. Let me know if any of you moms out there in blogger land have any tips on putting a group like this together. Thanks!

What I Love about Sundays

2009-09-13T23:12:00.000-04:00

BABE

2009-09-10T10:58:00.001-04:00

Harrison's new favorite movie is babe. Surely you all remember the one about the talking pig? He calls it the "kig movie" and I always have trouble figuring out what he is saying. I don't really understand his obsession with this movie but he loves it. Its better than watching spongebob I guess. We actually are trying to wean him off that cartoon. One of the trials of having such a gap in age between the kids is that Chloe is into things that Harrison just isn't old enough to partake in. One such thing is the choice of television programs. I was very careful once Chloe started watching T.V. to monitor everything she watched and for the most part, she only watched VeggieTales and PBS. I did not allow anything having to do with magic or anything violent. I still don't allow her to watch PG13 movies unless I have seen them and okayed them. I have relaxed a bit on the shows I let her watch now that she knows what is real and what is fake.

The problem I have run into is that Harrison is usually in the living room while she is watching her shows. I don't want her to have to go to her room just to watch television but I can't just ban Harrison from the living room either. What generally happens is that he ends up watching the shows with Chloe and now we have to face the fact that he loves Spongebob,Hannah Montana & icarly. Now I don't really have a problem with these shows but I don't know if it is good for Harrison to watch them. Is it hurting him at all? I know he picks up on things quite easily so if he is going to watch t.v. wouldn't his time be better spent watching something educational? Monty and I have just recently realised that we need to be aware of what we watch while Harrison is in the room. I know that I am not going to watch Greys Anatomy with Chloe in the room because the content is too mature for her but I didn't give a second thought to Harrison being in the room. After all,I thought, he is just a little guy and has no clue what is happening. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I read somewhere the other day that children even as young as Harrison who are exposed to adult programming(im not talking x-rated! just fighting,violence,sexual innuendo,yelling,etc.)grow up with a different perception as to what is acceptable. They almost become desensitized to it. They may not be watching everything that happens but as they are sitting in the floor playing with cars, they hear it all. Soooo, we have tried to remember that and hope to be more aware of the background noise.
Any thoughts on this bloggers? Anyone have any experience with this or advice they want to share?
I am open to suggestions!

Obama's School Speech to Kids with Transcript & Text

2009-09-09T00:26:00.001-04:00

Today, President Obama made a speech to school children across America. If you're curious about the transcript and text of his speech you can view it in full below as his prepared remarks were released by The White House Media yesterday. The very idea of his speech has caused a bit of controversy, but I'm impressed with this effort.

I attended public school my entire life and my memory may be failing me thanks to Mom Brain, but I don't ever remember a Presidential address aired in our schools. I find his message inspirational and I like how he is trying to share the value of an education with everyone across America despite the varied circumstances or hardships many aspiring students may face.

Here are the prepared remarks taken directly from the White House Media release.

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.
Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.
Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.
I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.
Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.
And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.
We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.
I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.
So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.
Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.
But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.
That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

Here's one for CakeWrecks

2009-09-06T13:57:00.003-04:00

This wonderful concoction of sugar and flour is available for purchase at our local bakery. Now this place makes a great cake and have produced some amazing looking desserts but if this is the new trend for the baby shower, count me out. lol.

All I'm saying is, how do you cut this thing? I'm wondering if the guest of honor will want to be the first to dig in to it? It gives a whole new meaning to the term "baby cake." Who wants the head?!?!

slip n slide

2009-09-05T12:03:00.001-04:00

Chloe and her best bud Leah had a blast the other day on the slip n slide chloe received from her grandparents. I used to have so much fun on those things when I was a kid. We got it all set up, unfortunately we don't have any sloping areas in our yard, and got the hose attached to it. Chloe took off running and looked like she was going to get some real distance. You can imagine our surprise when she only went a foot or so and came to a quick stop. Apparently you have to grease those things down to get some good action.

We sent Monty inside to fetch the dish soap. we got the whole thing coated down with some Dawn and it was nice and slick.

They were tired of waiting and were ready to go!

Chloe was up first and took off, she was cracking me up with her tongue sticking out.

pure joy!

Leah tried it surfer style but still ended up on her belly. She almost flew off the end!

Those two are always acting crazy. I think they both are starting to feel the stress of being in 6th grade. Leah's mom and I talk often about the mood swings and "attitude problems" the girls seem to have every single day. Chloe and I have always been pretty close and I have always been more of an ally than enemy but lately we just can't seem to get along. I think the battle of the hormones is about to ensue. I have been spending time in prayer about this especially as she is so vulnerable and impressionable right now.

I know that I can't control who she talks to and what she is exposed to all the time but I am shocked at some of the things I hear are going on with kids she knows. The number of pregnant girls at her MIDDLE SCHOOL is insane. I am torn in how I feel about these kids being allowed to continue going to school while their little bellies are growing more and more. I know that more than anything, these girls need to be encouraged to continue their education but I don't like the idea that my child is spending time at school with them and is offered the idea that if you get pregnant, everything is o.k. and you get to just act like nothing has changed. If anything, it is a novelty to be pregnant, everyone paying attention to you and giving you special treatment. Pregnancy is a time to be pampered and taken care of but it isn't something a teen should be dealing with. anyway, enough of my ranting. Have a great day!

Actual "Hand" Soap

2009-08-24T15:28:00.002-04:00

How would you like to see this in the guest bath? Creepy!

I cant believe it but they are sold out right now. you can check them out here.

2009-08-23T15:33:00.000-04:00

I came across this picture the other day. I think it was from about two or three years ago. A few of these girls were my really good friends. I miss them so much. I'm pretty sure this was the last time we all got together. Things have changed a lot since then. I'm in the front on the left. Heather is beside me,in the middle. This was before she moved to Canada I think. She is off hosting a radio show up there and I never get to see her. Aria is beside her, we live about 10 minutes from each other but with 5 kids between us we are only able to get together once or twice a month. Mandy is in the back on the left. She recently got married and had the most amazing fairy tale wedding. She only lives about 30 miles away but unfortunately, I never see her. Austin is beside her and I have no clue where she moved to. I haven't talked to her since that night. I think she may be getting married soon. I'm a horrible person, but I can't ever remember the other girls name. I've seen her a few times but we've never really gone out together. This pic makes me miss my friends. Its been hard to keep up with my friendships because I just don't have a desire to go out anymore. Aria and I are the only ones who have children and it just gets so hard to try and balance time with my husband, my kids and my friends. I really hate that I have let my relationships with these girls get so bad. I guess they aren't bad, they just barely exist. I really need to start putting more into them. I don't want to get so caught up in my own life, that I totally lose touch with theirs.

airbags

2009-08-22T15:07:00.001-04:00

The kids were cracking me up the other night.

Chloe convinced Harrison that he needed airbags.

He put on my sunglasses and was ready to go.
Nevermind the fact that he coudnt move his legs enough to move the car.

a rare moment when they weren't fighting

my wonderful, crazy daughter..another rare moment where she is smiling

Pudding!

2009-08-21T14:30:00.003-04:00

Harrison and I decided to make a little treat for dessert. He wanted to make some pudding although he hasn't ever tried it. I don't think he really understood what it was, he just liked the picture on the box.

We had to chill the first layer. He was so excited putting each one into the fridge. he had to have a taste

the finished product

Sweet boy..I don't know what he was looking at though!

"Jesus lives in mine heart"

2009-08-15T09:28:00.001-04:00

I was at Staples with Chloe grabbing a few things for school when I got a call from Monty. He wanted to tell me about the talk he had with Harrison as he was putting him to bed. I guess Harrison pointed to Monty's cross on his necklace and said, "Jesus" so Monty tolded him that Jesus loves him very much and Harrison responded by saying "Jesus lives in mine heart right here" and pointed to his heart. Then he said "daddy loves Jesus, mommy loves Jesus, coco loves Jesus". It makes me so happy to hear him say things like that. I am so proud of him. I know that he hears us talk about God and we sing the songs and tell him the stories but it is so cool to see that he is putting it all together. Chloe was the same way. Even at a very young age, she talked about Jesus and has always had such a tender heart. I love my kids!

"If it wasn't for all the bad meals, I wouldn't appreciate the good ones as much"

2009-08-14T00:08:00.002-04:00

Oh yes,that is what my husband said over dinner this evening. He had just complimented me on the amazing chicken parmesan I cooked (yay!) and we started laughing about my latest mishap from a few days prior. I put mrs. dash on EVERYTHING. Its my go to spice. It really makes everything taste better. I was in a rush,as always, and grabbed the dash to covered the pork tenderloin,potatoes,carrots and onions I had in a baking dish. Turns out, I grabbed the Mesquite flavored mrs. dash for grilling (whats with all the mesquite stuff? we don't even have a grill!) and ruined the entire meal. It was horrible!! Alas, we have discovered that you can cover just about any taste if you smother it with enough ranch dressing.

2009-08-12T00:22:00.003-04:00

So I am addicted to a new blog I've found. I stumbled upon funandfrugal.com recently and am amazed at how much I look forward to reading Gloria's updates each day. She has compiled a list of all the fun (and cheap) things to do around town. She also is amazing at finding the best deals on groceries. I am excited to learn more about ways to save money for my family. She is also doing really great give aways all the time. The latest one is to Wilderness in the Smokies. You should go check out her site if you live in the Chatt/Cleveland area. You won't be disappointed.

On a different note, I made some fried green tomatoes with dinner tonight. Don't they look yummy?

2009-08-09T15:11:00.001-04:00

I can't believe C is in middle school. Everyday I look at her and am amazed at what a beautiful young lady she has become. I'm so glad that her best friend Leah is with her this year.

They were so cute on their first day.

complete giggle boxes!!

She was pretty nervous and didn't sleep much the night before but she seems to like it ok now. We will see how the next few weeks go.

2009-08-08T14:07:00.002-04:00

We Spent the day on the boat with Thomas and some friends. Chloe decided to stay with a friend so it was just the three of us. My dh went out on the tube and Harrison was enthralled. When Monty came back in, I asked Harrison if he wanted to try and he responded with a quick yessss. I couln't believe he actually went out on it. He was so cute. They got going for a good two minutes before he started shaking his head and saying, "no,no,no". Thomas had a small surf board and we got to watch him ride behind the boat. It was amazing. Maybe one of these days I will give it a try.

getting ready to go..

still having fun...

and not so much...

2009-08-07T13:42:00.000-04:00

2009-08-07T13:21:00.002-04:00

It has been a busy week! We have had company for dinner the past two nights and C started middle school on Wednesday. Our Good friend Thomas was there for dinner that night and we all had a good time watching the kids make sugar cookies for dessert. H wasn't as interested in the cutting and decorating as he was in eating the dough. Everytime I walked away, he would have a mouthful of it and Chloe would start yelling for me. They crack me up the way they argue. I'm sure it won't last long but everytime I have to get on to them, I am hiding a smile.

2009-08-01T12:13:00.001-04:00

dinner....last night we had breakfast for dinner. yum right? yah, not so much. Dear hubby asked for the pepper grinder so I grabbed it from the cabinet and handed it over. Turns out, I wasn't paying very close attention and had been putting montreal seasoning and not black pepper all over our eggs. I was curious as to why the kids weren't eating them.

2009-07-31T16:20:00.002-04:00

My family thinks I am trying to kill them. My daughter sat down at the dinner table a few nights ago and pulled the spoon from a large bowl sitting beside her plate. "What's the gravy for?"she asked me. I told her curtly that those were actually mashed potatoes. My husband then sat down and gave the large green bowl a wary glance and said, "no offense but these potatoes have the consistency of glue." "What happened?" He began to laugh as he lifted a spoonful of the gooey substance and let is slowly drip onto his plate. I honestly don't know what I did wrong. I am assuming that I left them mixing in the kitchen aid just a few minutes too long. Needless to say, he was the only one brave enough to try them. My dear 2 year old H gave them one look and said, "no yukky." Ah, the joys of cooking.

2009-07-10T21:49:00.001-04:00

This is my first post and I don't really know what I am doing so bear with me!

- Kristy