Thursday, November 29, 2007

Joel is 2

My baby turned 2 today!! He is growing up so fast. Here are some of my favorite pictures of our little man. We didn't celebrate his birthday today. Thursdays are always busy for us and Joel is still not feeling well yet. We will celebrate his big day hopefully Saturday or Sunday.



I don't know why, but I so love this newborn picture. I remember it like it was yesterday.




I think that he looks so precious in this one. I just want to kiss those cheeks!!



This one represents the mess that he makes every time he eats. I know that he is becoming a neater eater, so these messes are adorable to me.




Joel is into everything. He is very smart and cute. This picture captures it all!! (He put those sandals on himself.)
Happy Birthday Joel David. Your mommy adores you!!

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

We are eating WHAT?

Tonight for supper I had cooked up a couple of bags of Italian blend mixed vegetables. The kids were having fun naming all the different types of veggies that they were eating. Cauliflower, Lima beans, snap peas, and carrots to name a few. When Jeff mentioned that the green stuff was zucchini, we all got a great laugh out of Amy's response. Amy said, "Zucchini? That's a two piece bathing suit!" I will be sure to keep her away from the vegetable aisle the next time we go shopping for swim wear!!

Joel is covered in red marks, blisters and scabs, but doing fine. Not sleeping well, but pretty happy most of the time. Three days down...not sure how many more days to go.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Thank you, Lord!!



Emily had shingles two weeks ago and now JOEL HAS CHICKENPOX!!! We are so excited to get this over with. I am not really looking forward to the "fun" week ahead, but I wouldn't change a thing. If any of you are interested in getting your child exposed, please just stop by.....we will be home!!

Thursday, November 22, 2007

It sure is a good thing......

THAT I KNOW HOW TO LAUGH AT MYSELF!!!

Today was a Thanksgiving that I will never forget. Today I realized that my dream of owning and running a bakery should NEVER happen! Where exactly do I begin? First of all, Jeff and I decided to have a nontraditional day of Thanksgiving food. We chose to have a brunch of Broccoli Quiche, Fruit Salad, Sausage Egg Casserole, and Homemade Cinnamon Rolls. Our brunch went great. The only problem was the glaze for the cinnamon rolls, the powdered sugar was not mixed in well so the rolls had little white balls all over them. Not a big deal, they tasted great anyway. Here is where the "real fun"begins. Later in the afternoon, while Joel slept, I had two hours to get supper and desserts made (Chicken pot pie filling, homemade biscuits to go with the filling, sugar cookie cut outs, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and homemade blueberry muffins). I did a lot of prep work the day before, so I thought that I could do SOOOOO much more in those two hours than any one person should do. I WAS WRONG!!! First I put two batch of pumpkin cookies in the oven. Next I started boiling the chicken. (A little history....Jeff had a fire on our stove last week. He accidentally melted a candle on one of the burners and the wax went up in flames. Wax went everywhere. I still have wax down in the burners. You can here it bubbling when the stove is on. One certain burner, my biggest and most used burner, makes our smoke detectors go off every time ....and man are they LOUD!!!) Back to my chicken. I needed to use that "waxed" burner, I just told myself that I would be careful. I was determined to not set off the smoke detector. Yep, you guessed correctly. I set it off. I panicked because Joel was sleeping. In my panic I turned off the OVEN instead of the burner. I am standing there waving my towel under the smoke detector and the thing won't stop, because the burner was still on. I ran to the stove and turned the burner off, then went back to waving my towel. All was quiet soon. I started cutting sugar cookies. Having a great time. The timer went off for the cookies in the oven. I checked them. After 10 minutes they were still not done. I ended up setting that timer THREE more times before I realized that I had turned the oven off in my panic. We all laughed so hard. I am still laughing!! I wish my reasons for laughing were done, but they are not. Keep reading. My pumpkin cookies were "finally" done. I next put in the sugar cookies. The timer went off 10 minutes later, but the cookies were not quite done yet. I forgot to set the timer again and I lost track of time. I ended up making VERY HARD, DARK BROWN cookies. For me anything not golden brown is burnt!! Now I felt as though I had ruined all the cookies. I still laughed though, because I never lose track of time when I have something in the oven. I was sure at this point that I should just stop baking and cooking, but I couldn't I had a family to feed. I told myself to be more careful and I meant it!! Next was the blueberry muffins. I promise you I have NEVER done this to any other muffin in my entire life. My blueberry muffins ended up coming out of the oven with huge holes in the middle. They were awful looking. We ended up throwing several away. Again I laughed!! I still had biscuits to bake. I wore the stupid timer on my shirt collar so that I would not mess these things up. They didn't burn, but they still weren't the best that I have made. The chicken pot pie filling did turn out great. My one success for the afternoon. God knew that I probably would have cried at this point if one more thing went wrong. My family was wonderful. They thanked me for everything!!
I am just thanking the Lord that I had many GOOD laughs today!!!
I hope that tomorrow goes better. I am going shopping at 3:30 in the morning and it is SNOWING outside!!!! I just pray that I make it home in one piece.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

I want to be more like.....

Are you asking yourself who I want to be more like? Well my answer will not be short, this week has held many exciting things.

  1. Lauren!! She and I went to Goodwill on Saturday's 50% off sale. I found out that she has much better taste in clothing than I do!! I want to be more like her.
  2. The guys at Goodwill!! I bought something pretty big for a Christmas gift. Amy Bearden and I were sure that we could get it into the trunk of her car. The guys who carried it out of the store for us knew immediately that it would not fit in the trunk. They could tell by just looking at it. They were SO right. I want to be more like them.
  3. Philip Wilson!! We finally did get that big item from Goodwill, inside of the car and on top of the girls in the back seat. We had more shopping to do, so I called a friend and asked if we could store it at her house for awhile. No problem. Her husband Philip came out to help us and to show us where to put it. Once he got it out of the car, we laid it on the ground and we noticed that it hadn't been closed correctly. Amy and I tried many things while Philip just stood and watched us. We couldn't figure out how to get all the pieces to fit correctly and still be able to shut it up. Philip very nicely told us to flip one thing over and our problem would be solved. He was right. I want to be more like him.
  4. Joel!! He has begun singing recently. His newest song is something like this...DA-DE-DA-DA-DE-DA-DEEEEE! In type it loses most of the effect, but my point is the child sings all the time and he doesn't care who hears him. He is so cute! I want to be more like him.
  5. Amy!! She cleaned around the house today all on her own...without being asked!! She is helpful and motivated. I want to be more like her.
  6. Karen!! She drove about six hours to Kentucky yesterday, with three BOYS, by herself! I don't like to drive to Walmart with three BOYS by myself!! I want to be more like her.

I will stop there for now.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Happy am I

I have had a wonderful day!!!
First of all, my cousin Nancy emailed me today. It was great to hear from her again. I miss her so much. She is twelve years older than me and has always been more like a sister than a cousin. She took me with her everywhere when I was little. She spoiled me rotten!!! I really miss those days. She got married when I was around ten and her "AWFUL" husband moved her to the other side of the country.....to California! I loved that man, until he took her away from us. I am still bitter! (Just teasing Rich) I only had ten or so short years with her, but we are still close. I love you, Nancy!!
On with my day. The next exciting thing was when I went to the mall today. A friend of mine gave me a gift card to Christopher and Banks, for my birthday last December. I LOVE that store, but everything is so high priced. I have held onto this gift card, in great hopes that I would find a huge sale there one day. TODAY WAS THAT DAY!!! I bought over a $120.00 worth of stuff for a little over $43.00. I still have $1 and some change left on the card!!! God is so good. He reminded me to bring the gift card today. I had it in a different purse. I would have been so bummed if I had gotten there and didn't have the card.
My last exciting news for the day is that this blog page finally recognized me when I went to sign in!!! Everyday for almost a year I have had to type my name in and my password anytime I wanted to blog!! I SOOOOOO hope that this is not just a fluke!
Have a great day ya'all. I will talk to you again soon.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Changes

Things have been changing around here recently.

  1. Joel is no longer in a crib. Last week we bought him a toddler bed. He is doing such a great job. He hasn't gotten out of bed once by himself. When he wakes up in the morning, he still calls for Daniel to get him out! I sure hope that potty training goes this easily!!!
  2. We have given up TV for one whole year. I am SO excited!!! At this point, we still let the children watch movies every so often though. Oh yeah, we are also able to watch Biggest Loser until the end of this season. We really want to see the last show, to see the dramatic changes that will take place.
  3. My two oldest girls are really growing up! I remember the days of thinking that they would never grow up fast enough. Wow! They are becoming my friends more and more everyday. I so love our relationship. The three of us can have a lot of fun together. Last night we called my Mom. We got to talking about my childhood nicknames. The girls laughed so hard when they heard what their Grammie used to call me. (I know you want to know, so here you go.......Funny Face, Bam Bam, Chatter Box, and Motor Mouth! Dare I say, "Don't ask!"?)
  4. We got the house all ready today for WINTER! Jeff put plastic around the porch and the children and I stocked it with enough wood to last us until hopefully January. It feels SO good to be prepared. By the way, we might be getting snow tomorrow! YUCK!! Really I couldn't care less though what the weather is between now and Thanksgiving. I just want it to be nice out the day after Thanksgiving! I AM going shopping!!!!

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

My thoughts

First of all, Happy Birthday to my dad!! I kind of did the birthday thing on Father's Day, so I will not write anymore about it! Except.......that I love you Dad!

Someone asked me recently, if I go by Judy? I don't anymore. I was known as Judi for the first 18 years of my life. When I came to Life Action my partner for teaching Happiness Club was Julie. The children had such a hard time keeping us straight. Miss Julie and Miss Judi was a mouth full for four year olds. After about two weeks of total confusion I changed my name to my full name of Judith. I hated it at first, but I like it so much better now. My parents and my extended family still call me Judi though. They are the only ones that get away with it! If anyone else calls me Judi (nurses are notorious for this) they are sure to hear what my name really is!

I am interested in getting a new digital camera for a Birthday/Christmas gift. Do anyone of you have a suggestion on a great one?

We saw a new movie this week, it is called The Ultimate Gift. My whole family absolutely loved it!! The first five or so minutes are the worst of the whole movie. If you haven't seen it, you need to!!

I have been off of sweets for over a week now. I will be continuing on this path until at least Thanksgiving. This has not been hard at all. I am actually enjoying myself!

Monday, November 5, 2007

Catching Up

Hey there! I have been trying to be careful of how much time I spend on the computer. Which strangely somehow keeps me from blogging. I will attempt to catch you up on our last week.

Friday night Daniel had his first all boy Birthday party. Jeff and the crew of "celebraters" roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over a small fire. After supper they enjoyed ice cream cone cupcakes. Then they played several games of capture the flag. An exciting night for all involved.

Saturday I spent the day mad. Jeff told me Friday night about a rule that was made that effected our family. I was SOOOOOO angry about the whole thing. Jeff worked 14 hours on Saturday so I was not able to discuss the rule until Saturday night. When we were able to talk, we discovered that he explained the rule ALL wrong!! I spent the entire day upset for no reason!

Sunday the kids were sick. We stayed inside all day and rested.

Monday was very busy. It all started when we went to a local Fire Department and got the grand tour. First we saw all the trucks and equipment. Next we were able to go back to were the fire men "live". Fire Man Scott did such an excellent job teaching us about fire safety. He even had the children act out what they should do if they are in a fire. It was such a great experience. We all learned a whole lot. As soon as we returned from the tour, it was time to go to Carter's Birthday party. We spent a couple of hours there having fun. When we returned home I had to get busy on a lesson for Bible Study. Later that night, while the children we still eating supper, I was heading out the door AGAIN, this time to go to Bible Study. After Bible Study Amy and I went to Meijer. I finally got home for the day at 10:30!

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Happy 10th Birthday

Today is Daniel's birthday. Here are some of my favorite pictures of him!!










I can't believe that my "little boy" is 10! I know that this is selfish, but when I found out that I was pregnant with a boy I prayed that he would be affectionate. I wanted him to adore his mommy and to grow up and be a great husband someday! He has his bad moments, but for the most part this guy does adore his mommy and I really think that he will make a great husband someday, that is IF we let him get married! (just joking!)



Daniel's four biggest passions are fishing, building anything that requires using a hammer, playing paintball, and last but not least......playing with any child younger than himself. (Did I mention that he is going to be a great dad too?) Don't worry, I am not one of those moms that thinks her son is perfect! It just wouldn't be right though to post the negative stuff on his birthday, so I will continue with the good stuff!! He is really good at math. He is also a great athlete. His favorite sports are soccer, basketball, football, bowling, golf, and teasing his sisters.



I love this child SOOOOOO much. I can see such potential for this young man's life. I pray that the Lord gets a hold of his heart and that Daniel spends his life serving Christ.



Happy Birthday, Buddy! I love you!