"The profound impact that a solid marriage, familial love, and godly order has on the children in a Christian home is dramatic." ~Passionate Housewives Desperate for God

I am currently reading/have been reading this book forever and I just love the quote above.  Nick and I mulled over it last night and have made it our parenting mantra.  It is just so true.  What we do and how we raise these children affects them for the rest of their lives. 

Often I get so caught up in the day to day, so overwhelmed by the needs of the everyday that I forget the big picture. 

The bottom line is that my ministry is these children.  Our life, leading them to Christ, raising them to somehow manage without their mother, that is what I am doing here. 

The quote has helped me to put it in perspective.  My children need to have our marriage strong, and our home filled with order and our family's love. 

Happy Tuesday!

I try to get a cute picture of the kids during the summer.  There's just something about summer pictures.  They're tanned and happy and all smiles.  Just look at these kiddos.  Aren't they just the cutest?  I could just eat them up.  One reason I love this picture is because up until now I hadn't realized how much they look alike.  But if you look at their smiles and their eyes, noses, and cheeks...they have the exact same features!  I am so in love with them. 

This weekend Nick had to work.  As mentioned before he has a crazy weird schedule.  He works something called a "swing schedule" which is kind of what nurses in hospitals are on.  Anyway, he worked this weekend so he should get Monday and Tuesday off.   But the man is working. 

And let me tell you, these kiddos are missing their Daddy.  Every day he comes home exhausted and they just want to climb on him and wrestle.  He's such a trooper.  But having Daddy home in the evenings just isn't the same as having him home all day.  Friday though he will be home and I know we all can't wait. 

One reason I can't wait for him to be home (besides the fact that we are crazy in love) is because I am planning on doing some serious garage saling. 

If you are wondering why I haven't mentioned my finds lately, its because I haven't had any!  Can you believe this insanity???  Needless to say I am itching to get out there and get some good deals! 

As much as we missed Daddy this weekend, we had loads of fun doing nothing!  Cal has started making sound effects...lazer shooting noises and the like.  So cute! 

Emma has taken to football so we've been out back playing catch with her.  The girl has some mad football skills.  Crazy!  She is reading so well and is just advancing so well.  Also have to tell you that she dances hilariously!!! I should try to get a video of her.  The problem with my kids and videos are that once they see that camera, they just become complete goofballs and distracted from what they were doing. 

Well that's all from here.  Hope you had a great weekend!  I have a sleeping Nicholas next to me.  Time to drag him upstairs to bed. 

Look What the Postman Brought!

I am so happy that this little bundle of joy has arrived!  This is the purse/tote Nick got me for Mother's Day.  Isn't it beautiful?  It's so me!  I just love the color combination!  Anyway, I guess I shouldn't say this is my Mother's Day gift as this is now the third one of these I've been through.  Hopefully this one will last forever like a Coach bag is supposed to.  That is why the man bought it for me anyway.  The first one the little threads of the c's started pulling out...after a day!  The second one the leather on the bottom started pulling apart, so hopefully third time's a charm and I don't have any problems with this puppy! 

The ladies at the Coach store were super nice.  This last time though was fairly upsetting.  I called the store and was told that they no longer have that.  Maybe I'd be able to find it at an outlet store by calling random stores and then visiting.  I was upset.  I mean, this is 2011!  Isn't there some way to find it at another store without me hunting down outlet stores? 

So Nick took their advice and called the store in Myrtle Beach.  We're vacationing there soon.  Maybe they could hold it for us???  Mail it to us???  Something?  The manager ALL THE WAY down there heard our cry for help.  She started calling stores around the country and found one in New Jersey that would send it out.  We've been told this is just about the last one in the country for sale. 

Needless to say I was so thankful for that manager in Myrtle Beach.  I am planning on visiting her in person to thank her for her customer service. 

So that's the highlight of my week.  All is right with the world now that my purse has been replaced.  Now if only I could find my camera battery...

But I'll save that story for another time!  :)

Math Scavenger Hunt

Well if you are like me you were ready for the weekend!  Not quite sure why I was ready for the weekend as I don't work and this weekend Nick has to work.  I guess it still feels exciting when its the weekend! 

Emma's in the picture above doing math.  She is getting so big!  Cannot believe it!  Anyway, to practice our math we made a math scavenger hunt.  She took her little plate of manipulatives (frozen marshmallows) to each math problem she found to figure them out. 

She got 100%.  She is just doing so great.  I've been searching the internet high and low for new ideas.  I guess I just have to keep things interesting for her.  She like the scavenger hunt and was super careful to keep those marshmallows on the plate so she could gobble them up when she was done...smart girl! 

Hope you all are planning on a great weekend!  As I mentioned Nick has to work this weekend (blah!) He has a weird schedule in case you hadn't noticed!  :)  I'm debating whether or not to take the kids hiking this weekend.  It would be by myself so not too sure about that.  Maybe during the week next week I will. 

I hope ya'll are staying cool.  It has been super, super hot here.  Hot where they have weather advisorys telling you not to go out, hot.  Ugh.  Needless to say we all feel spent simply because of the heat and we are all pulling out our hair because its so hot.  It's only supposed to be 95 today so hopefully that will offer some relief.  I really cannot believe I just sait "It's only supposed to be 95 today..." Sheesh!

Well Happy Weekending!  Do lots of relaxing and summer things like eating corn and watermelon! :)

The Birthday Boy!

Okay this is a terrible picture to post as it's not of anything special except one thing...look how much hair Nick has!  This was a picture of Nick on our honeymoon and today he celebrates his 33rd Birthday!  I love him so much and I feel so honored to get to share my life with him.  Happy Birthday Honey!!!!

Blueberry Picking

Last week we went blueberry picking.  It was hot.  But then again it is the middle of July in the midwest, so I guess that is to be expected.  We are so blessed to live about 15 minutes away from an organic blueberry farm. 

Our kids LOVE blueberrys.  That may even be an understatement.  We save so much money picking the berries ourselves.  To give you an example of how much we save, Meijer had blueberries on sale for $1.50 a pint this week.  At the blueberry farm we got organic blueberrys for 1.75 for a pound!  I get dizzy with the money saving excitement!!! 

We picked 30 pounds of blueberries.  Holy Cow that is a lot of fruit!  We froze almost all of them.  I am hoping to have enough left over to use throughout the year.  And I'd love to have enough to make fresh blueberry muffins for Christmas morning...yummy!

 Here's the gang on the tractor taking us out to the farm.  This farm is so organized it is just unreal.  They have acres and acres of plants.  They drop you off at a row where a worker takes you and puts you at a bush.  The bush hasn't been touched so you have an entire bush of berries to pick rather than try to aimlessly look for a bush with fruit still on it.  Yeah!

 Don't they look delish?

 This is what Cal did the entire time!  The worker gave him his own bush and when I was done with mine I picked from his.  That little stinker had half of his bush's berry's gone and NOTHING was in his bucket.  Nothing!  That's a lot of blueberrys to eat!

Emma was hiding!  She picked berries the entire time!  She is so diligent in her work!  She was keeping a berry track of what she would eat which was so cute. She'd yell out "I've eaten 5 now!  I'm up to 5!"  She cracks us up. 

Can you tell we were kind of hot?  Ugh, it was miserable.  The good news is that I got a rockin' awesome farmer's tan!  The blueberrys are behind the kiddos.  So when we got home yours truly got to package them all for freezing.  14 bags later and I was done!  Whew!  It is so worth it since we love blueberries!!!!

Garage Sale Finds

As I mentioned earlier I had the chance to go garage saling this weekend.  I was so happy that I did!  Here are some of the things that I got...

 This wonderful fireplace screen for $5.00!  I thought it was a steal.  I realize some of you have never seen this chairs before either. I don't think I had them at Christmas time.  Anywho, they are from Nick's Auntie up in Chicago.  I love them!  Our fireplace looked pretty ghetto-fabulous when we moved in so I think they jazz the place up a bit. 

 I got these three shirts for Cal at a garage sale.  I think total I paid $1.75 for them.  One even has the tags still on it!  SCORE!!!  Two of them are from the Gap and the other from Old Navy. 

 These are practically new GAP girls jeans.  They had a bajillion pairs of them; Nick wanted me to buy them out of jeans to ebay them, but I hate doing that.  I'm glad I stuck with my gut because these sell but not super well.  We got each pair for $1.00

 These are some other shirts to ebay.  Two are gymboree and one is gap.  I paid $1.50 total. 

This is a sweater I bought myself for $1.50.  I actually bought two more of these...the exact same sweater in aqua and black.  I am no fashionista but I think this is called a shawl neck sweater.  And I think I look super duper cute in them so I bought them.  This was actually my first purchase for myself at a garage sale.  I got some other things at the sales but have no idea where they are right now...weird, huh?
I got:
A brown eddie bauer vest for myself for $1.00
two recorders for homeschool music for $1.00 total
A few homeschool books for $.25 each
a super cute gap sweater with a hood for emma for $1.00 (I might have to hunt this down to show you...so cute!)

Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I am always so thrilled when I find good things! How about you?  What did you find?

We're getting there!

See this cash register?  This is the gift my Aunt Jan gave Emma for Christmas.   Simply because she's an awesome Aunt is the only thing I can figure. 

This register has helped me in more ways than I had ever hoped for. 

See first of all, the kids LOVE this thing. 

But also on the box I saw that it was made by this company called "Lakeshore Learning". So my interest was piqued.  Hmmm...what's this place?  So a few google requests later and I found out it was this awesome educational store and there was one in CHIGAGO!!!  Actually there are 2! 

If you have never been to one of these stores, you should go.  Even if you don't homeschool.  There are games and toys and books galore. 

Anyway, we went there once when we decided to homeschool but didn't really get much.  I had no clue what I was doing (still don't!) and just kind of wanted to see what they had to offer.

This weekend we went back to the store, flagged catalog in hand, ready to do some serious shopping.  I spent $73.00 which I don't think is much in the grand scheme of things. I was in need of a lesson planner too because the one I had bought from the buck section at Target was already falling apart.  And I had found a coupon on their website for a free planner!  God is so good!!!! 

I got trays to put Kazoo's work in, a magnetic wand thing for science projects, all kinds of curriculum, writing strips, a multiplication activity/game, THE PLANNER, paint sets, crayons, and lots, lots more.  I am excited because we are almost there! 

The attic however still isn't done, which consequently means that all of my homeschool stuff is stored in boxes.  I now have three giant boxes filled with supplies and things just itching to be put somewhere super cute!  Can't wait!  But we will get there, I know it's just a matter of time and patience. 

Our garage sale was pretty successful. We didn't make enough as we had hoped but we made some.  And that's all that you can hope for, right?  God is soooo good,folks. 

I even had a chance to do a bit of garage saleing (saling???) myself.  I'll try to take pictures of everything I bought during naptime today and post that. 

Happy Monday ya'll.  Hope you had a great weekend!

Coupons. 
I've become one of those people when it comes to coupons.  I am in no way hoarding things or what not but I do have quite a few coupons and I know how to use them. 
However, I do realize that quite a few people don't know how to coupon. 
I know you know how to clip them, how to save them, how to never look at them again.  It is hard work, this couponing.  So here are some pointers for those of you wondering. 
1) There are different types of coupons.  Mainly there are STORE coupons and there are MANUFACTURER coupons.  The type being determined by who is footing the bill regarding the money that you are saving.  So either the manufacturer is going to foot the bill of the $1.00 you save, or the store.  These two coupons can be used together at most stores.  So say you have a $1.00 off coupon from the newspaper.  Well if that item is on sale at, oh, say Target, you can look on Target's website for a Target coupon for that item.  Wham, bam, thank you ma'am.  That would be the perfect coupon equation...sale +manufacturer coupon +store coupon= darn good deal :) 
2) If you are looking to get into couponing, google "coupon blog" there are a bajillion out there.  Some of my favorites are Money Saving Mom and My Frugal Adventures.  These lead you to the coupons to just print and take to the store. Just look around and surf a little.  You are bound to find some that you really like and that can help you save some money.  A lot of these sites also have tutorials on how to coupon.
3) Have a game plan before you go to the store!  You have to!!!  Especially if you have children.  If you are the one standing over your coupon book in the store trying desperately to find "that one" coupon that you "just know has to be here somewhere" than I'm guessing you don't really like to coupon.  Start at home first.  I go through the sale ad and list everything on sale I need.  From there I look for coupons in my book that I can match with the sales.  If I don't have a coupon I look online.  Then I look for coupons in the same ways for things that weren't on sale but I need.  If say I need toilet paper, but can't find any in a sale flyer, then I will pull out all of my tp coupons and put them with my coupons to use.  That way I know where they all are when I get to the paper aisle and can start comparing prices rather than trying to find a coupon among hundreds of others. I take my coupon book with me but only for one case: clearance.  A lot of times Target will have things marked down that I can pair with a coupon I have.  Other than that I try to have all of my coupons ready to go and with my list before I ever set foot in the store.
4) Don't let coupons lead you to sales. I have had coupons before that have almost gotten me.  Let me explain.  This week Target had a coupon on Keebler cookies (and maybe you want to go snatch this deal).  Well they were 2.39/box.  Target had a coupon for "buy 3 cookies, get 1 free" and being that that's 4 boxes I could have used 2 coupons of "1.00 off 2 boxes Keebler Cookies"  Well that math for that makes the cookies 1.29/box!  That's a pretty good deal, right?  I almost put them in my cart too, except my voice of reason, aka Nick, pulled me in.  Because after all, we don't need cookies.  Let alone 4 boxes of cookies!  So I put them back.  Deals and coupons are only helpful when you are buying things you need and use, not something that you wouldn't normally buy had you not had the coupon.  That is by the way, one of the reasons company's put coupons out there...to try to get you to buy something new.  Don't fall for it! Unless you can get it for free! :) 
So there are a few tips.  Maybe sometime I'll share more with you.  Feel free to share some too!

HomeSchool Resource: Homeschool Share

Homeschool Share is a website that I stumbled across thanks to Money Saving Mom!  There are lots of unit studies there to help you out.  They had oodles and oodles of lapbooks.  What is a lapbook you ask?  Well a lapbook is a little book that you can make about something you are studying.  The theory being that if the information is in something that the kids put together and then have to look at and study, that maybe the info will stick a little better.  Nice, huh? 
Again you don't have to be homeschooling to use a lot of these websites.  I saw that they had a lot of information regarding Beatrix Potter's books.  It would be fun to make your way through those books and do the fun little activities about them. 

Book to Read: The Hand that First Held Mine

The Hand that First Held Mine
This is a book that I am wanting to read but also not because I'm such a reader who can't put a book down. 
Motherhood. 
It consumes me and binds me, and yet has identified me in a way that is beautiful and freeing.  Anyway, this is an excerpt from the book that I stumbled on.  It's a dead on description of my life.  And that of any mum's.  All of you mother readers out there, please feel free to comment.  This can't just be me feeling this...now I know at least this author feel's this way too!

We change shape, she continued, we buy low-heeled shoes, we cut off our long hair.  We begin to carry in our bags half-eaten rusks, a small tractor, a shred of beloved fabric, a plastic doll.  We lose muscle tone, sleep, reason, perspective.  Our hearts begin to live outside our bodies.  They breath, they eat, they crawl and-look!-they walk, they begin to speak to us.  We learn that we sometimes walk an inch at a time, to stop and examine every stick, every stone, every squashed tin along the way.  We get used to not going where we were going.  We learn to darn, perhaps to cook, to patch the knees of dungarees.  We get used to living with a love that suffuses us, suffocates us, blinds us, controls us.  We live. We contemplate our bodies, our stretched skin, those threads of silver around our brows, our strangely enlarged feet.  We learn to look less in the mirror.  We put our dry-clean only clothes in the back of the wardrobe.  Eventually, we throw them away.  We school ourselves to stop saying 'shit' and 'damn' and learn to say 'my goodness' and 'heavens above'. We give up smoking, we colour our hair, we search the vistas of parks, swimming pools, libraries, cafes for others of our kind.  We know each other by our pushchairs, our sleepless gazes, the beakers we carry.  We learn how to cool a fever, ease a cough, the four indicators of meningitis, that one must sometimes push a swing for two hours.  We buy biscuit cutters, washable paints, aprons, plastic bowls.  We no longer tolerate delayed buses, fighting in the street, smoking in restaurants, sex after midnight, inconsistency, laziness, being cold.  We contemplate younger women as they pass us in the street, with their cigarettes, their makeup, their tight-seemed dresses, their tiny handbags, their smooth, washed hair, and we turn away, we put down our heads, we keep on pushing the pram up the hill.

Maggie O'Farrell, The Hand That First Held Mine

Our Gorgeous Girl

Well as you can see, our little girl, Emma Kazoo just keeps getting more and more beautiful.  It's a curse really.  I thought I would make this post all about her as she is just getting so big!  Here's a little secret...Emma and I have a special club.  Now, I am sworn to secrecy as to the name of this club or where meetings take place. But we study Proverbs 31 and try to carry out some of the traits God instructs us to have. 
Emma's favorite trait is Eagerness.  Ever since we've started it, whenever I need a little helper-bee, she is there.  And she talks about it...a lot.  "I just love my new life mom, I feel so much better".  She's talking about having Jesus in her heart. Our precious little one asked Jesus to forgive her sins and have Jesus come and live in her heart.  It makes me full of emotion to see her so on fire for God.   She is just so tender and sweet.
Last night we were at Nick's parent's house getting ready for the garage sale.  She had been coloring on paper with a marker, found a shoebox and had started coloring away on that.  No big deal but I had asked her, "did you ask Grandma if you could color on that?" and she immediately started crying.  No, sobbing!  The poor dear felt so bad for having Messed it up (as she told me later).  I felt so bad for her. :(
She just wants to make everyone happy, and that's a pretty tall order sometime. 
Here are some other tid-bits about Kazoo:
The girl would eat cereal all day long if I let her.
She'd also play video games/computer games/watch television all day if we let her.  She's our little techie girl. 
She loves worksheets, and math problems, and writing.  She begs me to put together math problems for her to do. 
The girl is a whopping 36 pounds.  She weighs only 3 pounds more than her brother. 
She is tall and very thin...we are in a world of hurt come college time. 
She is also hilarious.  HILARIOUS. Have you ever seen Dispicable Me?  Well the kids have and they also have listened to the soundtrack about a kajillion times.  Just a note, the music in that movie is a lot of heavy beats/rap music...moving on.  I was out garage saling one morning and Nick said she came downstairs and breaks into this rap, saying "Cause Gru got the speakers and the trunk to make you bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce bounce".  Needless to say my husband had no idea what was going on and was just kind of like what???? Um, she dances to it too.
She's the neighborhood busy body.  She likes to open up her window and yell at people.  Not being mean, just saying hi, seeing how everyone's doing.  She knows when people are coming and going.
She loves Mac and Cheese and Shrimp Stir fry. 
So that's a little bit about our girl.  Hope you have a great Thursday. No garage sales for me as I am HAVING ONE!!! I am praying that we have a good turnout and get rid of lots of stuff! 

Power Outage

Do you like what our family does at Target?  Today we were having a pretty hum-drum morning.  Nick had the day off so he was cleaning the gutters and all of the sudden the sky darkened, the wind was blowing at about 80 mph and the power went out.  Blank.  Thankfully Nick had basically threw the ladder down and came inside because it looked scary...praise the Lord he did. 
Well we passed a couple of hours iin the hosue with no elecrtricity and no air conditioning before deciding to hit it and head to Target.   Holy Moly we got some good deals.  If you like coupons and haven't discovered Target coupons you need to look them up.  Like now.  You can use them with manufacturer coupons.  I end up getting so many things for free by combining coupons it is just unbelievable.  
So we kicked around there and three slurpie refills for the kids later we were ready to go home.  Thankfully we had power and life was good again. 
So that was our Monday, how was yours?

Cherish Those Little Ones :)

I saw this on a website frequent, Baby Good Buys and thought I would share.  It really irritates me when I see mom's just buying crap for their babies.  Grrr.  When I go into the Target baby section to get Cal's Pull-Ups, I'm irritated just by the fact that all of that junk is there in the first place.  Wipe warmer? Nope, don't need it.  8 different bouncers?  Nope, not needed.  On and on.  So if you are preggo's and getting ready to register, please think twice about everything.  I know you need stuff (good lord the amount of junk that my kids have is mind-boggling!).  But you don't have to have ALL of the stuff that the baby stores try to convince you that you need.  And to those moms who already have a baby, please don't start the suburb-competition game.  You know what I mean.  The game of "so and so" has a better stroller, so now I'm going to get a better one. With every little thing.  I've been down this road with some friends and trust me, it's just not a good road to start down.  It will consume your life and as the quote above talks about, take away from time you could be cherishing your little one.  And that is the most important thing, right?

Happy Sunday!