All Recipes

So in December we had the pleasure of having a family live with us for 2 weeks. While my good friend was here she showed me some amazing ways to save money on grocery shopping. First of all we would find a recipe on all recipes and then if I didn't have an ingredient we would look up how to make it on all recipes. Like we didn't have enough ketchup one night so we looked up ketchup on all recipes and sure enough we made our own ketchup. Then tonight I decided to make beef stew for dinner and one of the ingredients they called for was italian dressing. Well I didn't have any italian dressing so I looked up how to make it and I was able to make Italian dressing and it turned out pretty good. So I am super excited to learn a little more on how to save money on groceries. Definitely so I don't have to run to the store every time I am missing an ingredient for my dinner. I will let you know later on how the beef stew turned out.

Blessings upon Blessings

I know that for most of you, you probably already know that for 20 months now Joel and I have been trying to have another baby. After the first I would say 11 months I would get very and I mean very discouraged because I would find out that I wasn't pregnant. I cried I sometimes even screamed I questioned why God wouldn't give us another baby. I wanted so desperately to have another baby. It seemed like to me every day someone else was announcing they were pregnant. I would fall under the weight of once again I wasn't pregnant. Finally, God called into action a very good friend of mine who showed me very lovingly that I was so caught up in wanting a baby that I was forgetting to see God in it. She also encouraged me to start praying that God would make his desires my desires, Though difficult in the beginning to pray that and mean it. Another one of my good friends encouraged me by saying maybe this is just your time to love on other peoples kiddos. So after listening and praying I felt God starting to change my desire. It was amazing. I began to rejoice over the birth of many of my friends babies. It was nice to be asked to babysit for them and love on their kiddos. It was still very difficult at times not to think about the fact that I wasn't pregnant but I would again pray that God would make His desires my desires. Psalm 73:25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. This is the verse that I would cling to. I prayed that my desire would be only to serve my Creator and not my desires. God showed me that I have 2 amazing kids. They were my ministry right now. I finally came to terms with the fact that maybe 2 kids was all God wanted us to have. Then on December 11, after experiencing some really weird things happening with my body, Joel and I decided that I should take a pregnancy test and sure enough I saw very clearly the plus sign for pregnant. I laughed I cried I couldn't help but thank God for changing my desires so that I would learn to rely on Him and not myself. It was the most amazing thing that I could have gone through. It was very hard and very emotional but I a thankful that our God reigns over all and He deserves the Praise.

A couple of post

So Joel and I decided before we left to go to my parents for Christmas that we would take away Seth's pacifier as soon as we got back. So this is a memory I will want to share with him one day. So today I took Lydia and Seth to the dentist. Turns out he has a slight under bight because of paci as we call it. So the dentist told me that the sooner that we got rid of the paci the sooner that his bight would return to normal. So we took the plunge and I took the paci and snipped the end of it while Joel explained to him that he was a big boy and that he was going to get his present for throwing away his paci. So he took the paci and under Joel's encouragement threw the paci's in the trash with the end cut of it. So tomorrow I will update you on how he did paciless. Here to not having a sleepless night and much rest for Seth., who by the way has cut 8 teeth in the past 2 weeks.

Thankful heart

I know that it is time for us to once again celebrate thanksgiving. But these past few weeks I have been so overwhelmed with how ungrateful I am. So in a way this is a confession, but also I am striving to form a heart of gratefulness. I have been keeping up with a friend who I knew before college and then she just so happened to by roommate at college my freshmen year. She is going through one big trial a trial I know nothing about. She had c-section and gave birth to one amazing little boy, but they probably won't have him for varying long. As I have read her story and have prayed for her, I realized that I need to be thankful with the 2 children God has blessed me with. Now it's not that I haven't said thank you God for my kids, but now I realize that I need to be thankful for them daily thanking God for the oppurtunity to just love them and teach them and even discipline. When I have days where I just want to be away from my kids because they have just pushed every button I had, I need to say instead God thank you for these kids and thank you that if I have them for just one more day God you have sustained us and I know that there are reasons we fight one battle right after the other. So today I am making the decision to every day say thank you God for my two amazing miracles. I no longer want to take them for granted or push there silliness away but embrace them wholly and enjoy every second I have with them.

Ps

I forgot to add How amazing Joel has been. After he rushed home to rescue me out of the shower he took 3 afternoons off to make sure I was ok. Then every ight he comes home jumps right into everything. Kids, cooking, cleaning, ice warm ice warm. He takes on the responsibility for the kids for everything, bathing, disciplining, feeding, playing. He is definitely my night a d shining armor. Then he still sits down after bed time and works for a couple of hours. All to get up in the morning to start all over again. So thank you hubby. I am so thankful.

Stop

Stop seems to be a fitting title for my post considering the recent events in my life. October comes with so many beautiful things except this October unlike October of '11 came with sitting in a chair not doing anything. I am writing this story so that I can remember one day about this October and the many blessings I am experiencing. On October 25th after one of my first times back to jazzercise in a few weeks I came home to take a shower. I put the kids in room time so I knew they would be safe and jumped into the shower. Realizing I haven't shaved in awhile decided then would be a good time, and after that it's all kind of a blur. I remember slipping and falling but not much in between time. The next thing i feel is terrible pain in my rib area. I could barely breathe I had knocked the wind out of me. So as soon as I gain enough breathe I called for Lydia and she of course came running and I said go get mommies phone. So she ran out to get of course first asking a lot of questions. I said dial daddies number and she did. I told Joel that I had fallen in the bath tub and I couldn't get up. So he said he would be right here and hung up. So within minutes he got here helped me out of the bathtub that's when we noticed that I hurt my foot pretty badly. It was bleeding and cut open. So he brought me out to living room and looked over my foot and we both decided well it really isn't bad enough for stitches and that it would be better in the morning. So Wednesday morning I went church to do some stuff for the nursery and after standing on it for an hour I realized there was something worse done then just the cut. Well after making an appointment and a lot of help from a lot of different people sure enough I had done enough damage to my foot to have to be laid up for 2 weeks. So Joel's mom came to help and what a massive help she has been. Then after another appointment yesterday I found I am laid up for a other 4 weeks. So through all of this I have realized what a blessing walking truly is. I miss being down on the floor playing and imagining with the kids. I miss cooking and cleaning and talking nice walks around our subdivisions. But I have started to see the tremendous blessings God has made me see. First of all how many people have jumped into help us out. Babysitting, making meals, and just being a good visitor to me while I can't so much now. Another blessing is Betsy Leineweber. She has played, cooked, cleaned, cleaned,cleaned, and laundry galore. She is one of the greatest blessings in my life. Also I have has the oppurtunity to pray with two different people after they had called me to pray for a struggle they are going through. So being laid up in a chair for 6 weeks isn't so bad. So in lue of my title i know that God is telling me to stop and be thankful for the blessings in my life.

My best friend

I am so thankful for God's Design of marriage. I can't imagine life with out my amazing husband. He has shown me what selflessness looks like and he chooses joy in the hard times and in the easy times. One of my favorite times to share with him is laughter. We have a lot of fun together and he is so easy to talk to. He is an amazing daddy and one of our favorite times of the day is when he comes home from work. I love you Joel and I am so humbled by God's gift of you to me. Thank you for being an amazing husband and showing Christ to me in our major. Love Wifey