Saturday, May 31, 2008

So, what are you doing to conserve?

With gas closing in on $4. a gallon, food prices rising, and the cost of living heading through the roof, are you finding ways to conserve your resourses? Here's what I'm doing:


  • consolidating trips for errands

  • keeping the thermostat at a higher temperature

  • running the dishwasher on a timer in the middle of the night (hopefully a cheaper time frame to use it)

  • making baby food / baby wipes (can't make myself use cloth diapers!)

  • considering an outdoor clothes line

  • being more conservative / creative with leftovers

  • doing my own hair color / pedicures

  • realizing how big a treat it REALLY is to eat out!

OK, a lot of this stuff I did anyway! But, now I'm way more aware of them! What about you? Any tips to share?

Thursday, May 29, 2008

What's up with that.....

The evolution of man and TV

I stole this from another blog. Thought it was great!


Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Mama said there'd be days like this....

Nice, relaxing holiday weekend is over, and my butt is so dragging today. Kicker is, we relaxed all weekend! Tim's back to work, laundry is piled up, groceries to be bought, attitudes to be checked, and oh, I'm soooo tired today....

I love this poem, and I'm trying to keep it in mind as I do my mommy stuff today:

Three Mothers
Once a woman came upon three mothers at work.
"What are you doing?" she asked one of them.
"I'm doing the weekly washing," answered the first.
"I'm doing a bit of household drudgery," replied the second.
"I'm mothering three young children who someday will fill important and useful spheres in life, and wash-day is a part of my grand task in caring for these souls who shall live forever," replied the third.
Only she had caught the vision of the great work she was doing.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Isn't she lovely....

Kate has been home 10 1/2 weeks, and boy, has it been a wild ride! A little over a year and a half ago, I cried for 2 weeks when I realized Tim was serious about a third baby! (God just had to take us both down special paths to prepare our hearts for her!) Now, I can't imagine my life without my three girls! I've been asked repeatedly, "How does it feel to now be the mother of three?" I can tell you that it feels wonderful. My life feels so incredibly full, complete, and happy. I don't know exactly what it is, but I seem to treasure the moments more... I guess with Callie now 8, I'm realizing that life, indeed, is incredibly fast, and before I turn around, Kate will be as old as Callie. It feels easier, and even more fun the third time around! Kate brings us so much joy!
Of course, it is a lot easier to say this now that full adjustments to her homecoming have been made. Claire and Callie both have adapted beautifully and love for Kate continues to blossom in the hearts of all of us.
The emotional side of adoption amazes me. It's true. What I've always heard. I love Kate just as much as my biological daughters. To me, that's miraculous. I know it's just a reflection, a picture, of the love my Heavenly Father has for me....
"In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will ~ to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding...."
Ephesians 1:5-8
It's just incredible, practically incomprehensible, that our Heavenly Father loves us as much as His Son, Jesus. And, that it was "in accordance with His pleasure and will" that He predestined us to be adopted into His family. He wanted us, just like we wanted Kate! It was His pleasure to welcome us as His child, just like it is our wonderful pleasure to welcome Kate into our family and make her a co-heir. Think about it! (AND, I'm sure God didn't cry for 2 weeks at the thought of adding more kids to His family!)

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Lose yourself in a good book this summer

Lose more than yourself ~ Lose your religious ideologies of God.
I just finished this today. This book will leave you longing to cozy up to the Triune Godhead of the universe. It's an easy reading novel (not boring theologies) that will blow the lid off the box you've kept God in for so long.....



"This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress did for his. It's that good!" - Eugene Peterson


Mackenzie Allen Philip's youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgement he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Square in a round world...


"A round watermelon can take up a lot of room in a refrigerater and the usually round fruit often sits awkwardly on refrigerator shelves. Smart Japanese Farmers have forced their watermelons to grow into a square shape by inserting the melons into square, tempered glass cases while the fruit is still growing on the vine."

Sunday, May 18, 2008

It's all good...

We're finally back in a routine! Every time my previous post came up with the photo of Kate crying in her bed, my four year old, sweet Claire kept saying, "That's poor. That's poor. That's poor." I wasn't quite sure what she meant by that... poor blogging, poor photo, but I suspect she was trying to say, "poor Kate"! It was the very next night, as I was questioning my sanity, that Kate whimpered a moment, then slept 11 solid hours. Oh, that's rich!

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Coffee anyone?

So, I've been following another adoptive / blogging family who have a baby girl from Ethiopia (she's SO cute!) They have a passion to help orphans worldwide and started Gobena Coffee where 100% of the proceeds goes towards orphan care.... So cool! I'm thinking Father's Day presents for my hubby and father-in-law. Click on the name above to get to the store. Buy something. Help an orphan. Enjoy a cup of joe.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Keepin' it REAL!

So this is the flip side of our wonderful beach trip (below)! Uguh! (sometimes it bothers me everything in blogger - land seems so perfect, ya know?!) Yes, I did take a picture of my screaming child..... just wanted to share the joy! When we went to the beach she got s-p-o-i-l-e-d sleeping in the pack-n-play by our bed.... Now we're back to sleep training. Poor thing. Didn't we just do this?!When we left home she loved her crib...... Yikes!

Saturday, May 10, 2008

I honor my mother

Peter Marshall's Challenge
Peter Marshall, one - time chaplain to the U.S. Senate, exhorting American women,
said the following:

The modern challenge to motherhood is the eternal challenge ~ that of being godly women. The very phrase sounds strange in our ears. We never hear it now.

We hear about every other kind of women ~ beautiful women, smart women, sophisticated women, career women, talented women, divorced women.

But so seldom do we hear of a godly woman ~ or of a godly man either, for that matter.

I believe women come nearer fulfilling their God-given function in the home than anywhere else.

It is a much nobler thing to be a good wife than to be Miss America.

It is a greater achievement to establish a Christian home than it is to produce a second-rate novel, filled with filth.

It is a far, far better thing in the realms of morals to be old-fashioned than to be ultra-modern.

The world has enough women who know how to hold their cocktails, who have lost all their illusions and their faith.

The world has enough women who know how to be smart.

It needs women who are willing to be simple.

The world has enough women who know how to be brilliant.

It needs some who will be brave.

The world has enough women who are popular.

It needs more who are pure.

We need women, and men, too, who would rather be morally right than socially correct.

Let us not fool ourselves ~ without Christianity, without Christian education, without the principles of Christ inculcated into young life, we are simply rearing pagans.

Physically, they will be perfect. Intellectually, they will be brilliant.

But spiritually, they will be pagan. Let us not fool ourselves.

The twentieth century challenge to motherhood ~ when it is all boiled down ~ is that mothers will have an experience of God.... a reality which they can pass on to their children.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To my mother ~ who walks with God in the cool of the day as well as the heat of battle...

There is none that I admire more....

Thank you for passing your reality on to us.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Wii finally caved

Tim's the cultured one with 13 something years of music lessons ~ but I got to tell ya, if learning the scales was as fun as Guitar Hero, I might have stuck with it a little longer than the ummmmm, couple months that I did.....

Hey, this has got to count for some sort of home school music credit, right?!!!