Saturday's project

I keep a "to do" list on my computer's calendar, and I am lucky if I get to actually do any of them. In the spirit of my friend Holly's Saturday's project posts, I decided to share how I spent some of my Saturday doing one of my to do's.

Organizing....We were fortunate enough to have one of my dear friends give me all her hand me downs for her 2 sons. Needless to say between her and my mom's shopping sprees, we have plenty of clothes. Originally, I had boxed up all the larger sizes and tucked them away in storage, but since we have the room, I decided to pull them all out and sort them by sizes. (Notice the top shelf)

Also, I went through Dylan's drawers pulled out the clothes that were too small and the ones that I thought he may never wear. If you know me, I am not big into characters on clothing, so some of the clothes my friend gave me were a little to fru fru for me. Then I organized the drawers a little better. I should take a picture of them in a few weeks, I am sure they will not look like this long. I always have the best intentions, but it's hard to keep it up.

Onesies

Shirts and pants

PJs

Never say Never

We always here that age old phrase, never say never and while I try not to, I can recall two times in my life that I said never, and never happened. 

I enrolled at MTSU and soon found myself hanging out with a few girls that I had met on campus. When the time came around to go through rush (for a sorority), we all passed it up, as it was not for us. The sororities at MTSU seemed false and pretentious, (sorry if you were greek there), so we chose to make our destiny and find friends the old fashion way. While visiting a long time friend at UTC, I was asked by her friend if I was in a sorority. I said, No, I would never be in a sorority. I finished my freshman year at MTSU and that summer I met a boy and fell in love. As chance would have it, he was going to UTC the following year. Now, I hadn't been too happy at MTSU, as it was such a large school and I was really looking for a change. My friend Andrea, whom was already there and my other friend Julie who would be a freshman were incentives to attend UTC as well. The handful of times I visited, I loved it..the atmosphere, the charm and the people. I enrolled at UTC and off I went. Rush week came around, and I had 2 roommates who were already greek. They encouraged me to rush, but I had a job and I had to work. (If you know me, I can't say no or back out of commitments). Again, as chance would have it, one sorority didn't make quota, so they held open rush one night. Now, I knew if I were to join, they'd be the sorority to join just by the girls I had met, including my roommates. Off I went to open rush and later that week, I got invited to Chi Omega. I can get all technical and say I didn't join a sorority, as Chi Omega is officially a fraternity. However, the girl I had told that I would never be in a sorority, became my sorority sister. 

The next time never back fired was more recently. About 2 years ago, I had several friends who were pregnant at the same time. They kept saying how I should get pregnant too. It was way to soon for us, we had only been married like 6 months. They were always saying how I could have play dates with them and what not, and here it goes....I will never be a stay at home mom. (GASP) I am not really sure why I said it. A little bit of me says it was a defense mechanism as I thought we'd never be able to afford for me to stay at home and a little bit of me says I needed more adult interaction than a stay at home mom got. Well, God has blessed us with the opportunity for me to stay at home with Dylan and even before Dylan, to stay at home with Tyler when we had him. I actually look forward to being a stay at home mom for several years. Maybe after the kiddies are grown and in school, then I will look at being employed again. Unless God has other plans that have me looking sooner :)

Lesson learned...never say never...I should have listened to everyone all along.

Think about it...

A president's pension currently is $191,300 per year, until he is 80 years old.

Assuming the next president lives to age 80. Sen. McCain would receive ZERO pension as he would reach 80 at the end of two terms as president. Sen. Obama would be retired for 26 years after two terms and would receive $4,973,800 in pension.

Therefore, it would certainly make economic sense to elect McCain in November.

(To bad that electing a president isn't like playing a game of Euchre. After the cards are dealt, if everyone passes up the opportunity to pick the card up and passes on the chance to choose a suit, then you toss your cards in for a new hand to be dealt. That way, we can pass on both nominees and get new ones :)

7 Things

I have been tagged, by Lori,  to complete the following.  See if I tagged you at the end.

7 things I want to do before I die
(sorry Kelley and Lori but I stole some but I swear they are things I want to do)

1) go on a mission trip - hopefully Malawai next summer
2) have another child - hopefully get preggers next year
3) learn to play the guitar - someone want to buy me guitar hero?
4) learn sign language - know some, but want to be fluent
5) trust God completely with everything
6) take a cruise to Alaska - had it booked but cancelled due to some conflicts
7) win the lottery (wishful thinking)

7 things I can do

1) keep a secret
2) a real push up
3) make people laugh
4) rescue all the runaway dogs in the neighborhood and find their rightful owners through their rabies tags
5) make great sausage balls
6) be sarcastic (a little too much at times)
7) change a nasty diaper

7 things I cannot do

1) let Damien drive without making a comment
2) sing, as much as I want to carry a tune, it doesn't happen
3) find clothes that I like that are reasonably priced
4) get near a snake - dead  or alive
5) touch ice
6) go to bed without checking on dylan a million times
7) help but feel left out sometimes

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex (changing this one to 'my spouse')

1) his faith
2) his humor
3) his leadership abilities
4) his concern for Dylan and mine's well being
5) his loyalty
6) his good looks
7) his heart

7 things I say most often

1) Really
2) Shake your bootie (I sing it to Dylan)
3) What
4) Babe
5) I am going to check on Dylan
6) You can't drive
7) Where are you going this week?

7 celebrity crushes (in no particular order)

1) Jason Statham (have you seen The Transporter?)
2) Trace Adkins (amazing Dad and best all around personality)
3) Hugh Jackman (handsome)
4) Tyson Beckford (oozes hotness)
5) Matthew McConaughey, hey (amazing abs, dumb as a rock though)
6) Steve Carrell (sense of humor)
7) David Beckham (oozes hotness)

7 people who I think should do this

1) Ashely
2) Misty
3) Michelle
4) Krista
5) Janine
6) Nikki
7) Holly

30 days

What would you do with your life, if you knew that you only had 30 days to live?  

Our church is doing a series called, Live Like You Were Dying, where we will explore how we would

• value the people in our life?
• speak more lovingly?
• give and receive forgiveness?
• embrace eternity?

This will be quite a journey. In addition to the 5 weeks of teaching by Pastor Rick, we will meet as a small group 4 weeks and do a daily devotional. 

Damien and I starting leading a home group a couple of years ago. When we thought God was moving us to Cleveland, OH, we slowly removed ourselves from the various ministries we were involved in. After God told us, no you are staying here, it took a while, but we got involved again, co-hosting a group with the Brown's. The group got big, so we broke off into 2 groups. We didn't tell the people where to go, we let them choose. Our group ended up with 2 of the couples which brought our group to 4 couples, including us. Of these couples, one will be moving in September to Indiana and another has a lot of work conflicts and cannot make it to a lot of the gatherings. This meant we could only guarantee that one couple and us would meet for this series and going forward. We weren't so sure that this was the right thing, so we prayed for God to send us more people as that was the only way we would do the group. Did God answer our prayers..we have 7 couples and 2 singles. Our group of 6 went to 16!!!  There are 5 people in our group who don't even go to our church and 2 who have visited 2 times. I think God has great plans for our group, as well as the other groups going through this series together. I will try and post on the teachings, my thoughts and insights, as we go through the next 30 days. 

Hello Hummingbird

Last year, we put out a hummingbird feeder for the first time, and to my surprise, we actually attracted one. (S)He stayed with us for a few months and was very protective of the feeder if another little one decided to stop in for a drink. This year, I put out our feeder in early May, before I had Dylan, as I wanted to have them around much longer. Nothing for quite some time, but we finally got a visitor about 3 weeks ago.  Damien said, there's a hummingbird out there and I freaked out. The water hasn't been changed since May. I had no intentions of changing out every week unless I had a hummingbird. I rushed out, got the feeder and mixed up the sugar water (I boil my water in advance and keep it in the refrigerator and add the sugar when I need it). Damien said he was drinking it just fine. I was like, it's moldy and old, it would probably kill it. 

I have seen 2 others as well, but (s)he always chases them off. I wish they'd just share, there is enough sugar water for everyone. It's hard to get good shots of the hummingbird as our deck is covered so not a lot of light gets in to get the colors on the hummingbird, but this one is green. When he's not perched on the feeder bracket, he hangs out in our river birch, just in sight of the feeder so he can dive bomb any unwanted stragglers. I will sure miss them when they leave in the fall. We love watching them as they hang out all day and all night. A little trivia did you know that hummingbirds weigh the same as a penny, can flap it's wings about 80 times per second, can fly upside down and has a heart rate of 1,260 beats per minute when feeding.

milestone - rolling over - check

It's only been 10 days since my last blog about Dylan rolling over, and now, he has it mastered. Any time I lay him down, he has to roll over. I have created a monster. The only time I really worry about him is in bed. He now likes to sleep on his stomach which is a big no-no, I know, but what am I to do? I just try to make sure he turns his head enough and that he isn't near the bumper.

Here he is in action...

His first Halloween

I love all the firsts that we get to experience as new parents, and halloween is no exception. We will not be taking Dylan trick or treating, but I still want to dress him up. We got a catalog in the mail the other day, and I found some cute costumes. Which one do you think Dylan would look best in?

Lobster

Penguin

Goldfish

Turtle

Who knows, I may find another one that I like better.

Baby Crack

Now that I have your attention...

Baby Einstein videos are all the craze. They start for children at 0 months up to 36 months. If you are not familiar with them, they are videos of real life,colorful images set to music or different languages.

I have heard different arguments if they are good for children.  Some say they promote cognitve learning while others say it limits learning.  To each his own, I let Dylan watch his first one the other day, and he seemed to enjoy it.  Now, I won't be letting him watch them all the time, but they are great tools if you need to get something done and to keep the children entertained.  All this to say, I call the videos baby crack as the kids zone out and stare at the TV the entire time, like they are on drugs.

Dylan enjoying the show

My little squirmer

Dylan has learned how to push himself everywhere. I lay him down on his mat in the morning while I eat breakfast, and he starts out normal, facing the toys. Then, I find him all kinds of different ways. None of these pictures were posed, this is all his doing.

Dylan backwards

Dylan facing side backwards

Dylan facing side front

Bad Judgement

You may think this video is about Dylan, and while he's the only one you actually see in the video, it's not my reason for posting it.  You may recall that I have already blogged about Dylan for this event, see my earlier blog Chillaxin at Oaklawn.

I went to the Apple store this week to learn about my iMovie software. On Friday, I was playing around with it and editing some of my video footage.  I usually never have my sound on the computer on, but for this process, I wanted to hear some sound effects. That's when I came accross what I like to call, EVIDENCE. 

This blog is more a jab at my sweet husband Damien.  He had a case of bad judgement. While tossing the football with another adult, a sweet little boy named Caleb (who is 4 years old) asked Damien to throw the ball to him, and Damien did, not knowing any better. Mind you, Caleb can catch a ball, a nerf football. This one is the standard college football. Also, Caleb was not standing a mere few feet from Damien, so Damien could not lob it to him. Nope, he full out threw it.  Needless to say, Damien learned his lesson.  

In order to hear the video, you will need to pause the music at the bottom before playing it. Turn your volume up, so that you can hear it.

.06 secs - Caleb - "throw it to me"

.09 secs - Damien - "you ready"

.10 secs - The crowd gasps

In Damien's defense, Caleb did sound confident that he could catch the ball, and Damien felt horrible that he got hit. 

Caleb was a warrior. Even though he got smacked in the face, by a hard football, he did not cry or even act like it hurt. 

On another note, Dylan does have a cute wink at the end :)

Dinner for cheap

I am no Angel Kennedy, but I pride myself on making meals for cheap. I am not always able to pull such accomplishments off, but the other night, I made a meal for under $4.50.

The already seasoned cajun chicken, I got at super target for $1. That's for 2 fillets. They were regularly priced at $4.92 and there was a $2 dollar coupon, but when I checked out, they rang up for $3. Needless to say that I went back and got 2 more. The potatoes were $1.07, and the mixed vegetables were $1.99.  Let's tally....

1.00

1.07

1.99

-----

4.06 plus tax 

(Angel feeds her family of 4 on $150 a month.  She teaches a faithful and frugal class at our church that teaches how to get the most out of your coupons. Check out the faithful and frugal blog found in my blog list.)

Rollin with the hommies

This past week, I started really working with Dylan on rolling over. He tries so hard and he gets mad that he can't do it.  On Saturday, he finally did it. He rolled over from his stomach to his back.  I have to help him get on his stomach, as he cannot quite do it yet, but once I had him on his stomach, I went into the kitchen and came back to find him on his back. I was so proud of him.  Now, no matter where I put him, he's trying his hardest to rollover.