THE schedule

Sunday was filled with church which I LOVE!  I am leading marriage ministry and so I got to church early, and then stayed until after 3rd service started to hand out the devotion books we are starting for Married Life.  Then we met up with a few of the families from our life group and had lunch which was as always, a great time!  By the time we got back home, there was just enough time to get Garner fed and down for a nap and it was back to church again.  I really love our church so getting to be so involved feels like such a blessing.

When I got back home my older two kids wanted to spend time with my mom and so we decided to let them stay a few nights with her.  This was a PERFECT time for it because Joel was going to be off work from all jobs on Monday.  Let me just say that some time together was much needed!  We did not do anything super exciting, we just were together!

During our time together we talked a lot and one thing we talked about was THE schedule.  I started telling him how I was a little worried because it felt like even though I was cutting out a huge chunk of my photography load, that the coming, very soon, fall schedule seemed to be filling up awfully fast.
I started naming things like, dance, soccer, life group, co-op, MOFX (it is our church's family worship experience that we are starting to have once a month), and the list just goes on.

Joel seems to really be able to just go with the flow of life.  I on the the other hand, not so much........  I like to have a plan and a schedule.  I think that both things are good BUT I tend to not love the failure of THE plan or THE schedule.  I am working on trying to be more realistic with my expectations and to also be a better judge at what can fit into our lives.  I do not want to be so busy that we are rushing through everything on the schedule.  I want to enjoy the things in our lives and not feel like I am just doing what has to be done on the list.

Having this new sweet baby has done a lot to teach me about making the more important things priority.  I love that she makes us all stop and just watch her.  There have been so many times that all 4 of us are just staring at her or playing with her and it just makes the rest of the world disappear.

My hope is that with the busy fall season approaching, that I can focus more on the task I am doing and less on what number on my list it is!

Defeated.......

I wanted so badly to blog often.  But life has proven once again to be crazy busy and I have not had time to devote to blogging.  I would love to catch up but since I am months behind..... I think I will just start fresh.

I want to start by talking about what is currently going on in our life.  This post is going to mainly be about our choice to try to remove debt from our lives.  A few years ago we decided we wanted to buy land and build a house.  Long story short, we bought land, built a 1300SF Garage with a bonus room above it that is part of our house plans (detached garage).  The original plan was to live in the garage until we could get the house done.  I guess that is still the plan, but its a much longer term than we had planned.

We moved into the garage a year ago in May.  Once we moved in, we realized that we needed to face reality.  We were drowning in our bad financial choices.  We had spent the first 7 years of our marriage proving our worth with material things.  The first 5 years we did that by buying more then we had money for.  Then year 6 and 7 we were really doing great financially but instead of paying off the debt we had gotten ourselves into, we celebrated with more stuff and more vacations.  At the time it seemed really wonderful.

Over the course of year 8 and 9 of our marriage, we were really humbled to see our mistakes and the Lord really worked on our hearts.  By the time we moved to the "farm" in May of 2011 both of our hearts were drawn to a debt free lifestyle.  But what did this mean?  At first I committed to living in the garage for a few years and paying off debt.  Then it was lets turn off the cable, and we just continued to talk about ways to cut back debt.  We also started trying out a little Dave Ramsey.

So here we are, a year after our start to become debt free.  Guess what?  I don't have good news.  We have done a great job at making excuses.  We have done a really good job of talking about all our plans for executing this debt free plan.  But we have FAILED!

I am writing today because I have been so discouraged.  I have been discouraged by my debt and how much we have.  I have been discouraged thinking about how long it will take to pay it off.  I have been discouraged in so many ways and I am tired of being defeated.  I know that God has called us to journey of becoming debt free and the Enemy has been constantly whispering "you will never be able to succeed"  but I am DONE being defeated!

We are taking some pretty drastic moves to make sure that we jump start our debt snowball.  First, we are selling our super nice, comfortable, fabulous, (jessica wanted for years), suburban.  I am trying to find something SUPER cheap for us.  I am talking $3,000 or less if possible.
And in 18 months, I can pay off $9,000 in debt just with the car payment I have been making!

So I plan to continue to blog and tell my story.  It will be a story of our family Defeating our Debt!

I am also planning to blog about daily struggles, kids, family, other changes we are making to be healthier, and much more.  Hopefully I can keep it up!  I really enjoy writing my feelings down!

Happy Birthday Joel!

My FABULOUS, wonderful, amazing, handsome, (ok I will stop) Husband had a birthday last week! We woke him up with some breakfast in bed! Jade wrote daddy a poem "roses are red, violets are blue, breakfast in bed, because we love you!" Daddy loved his surprise! After breakfast we just hung out with daddy. Then we grabbed lunch and went to A to Z, because that is what daddy wanted to do! {Breakfast tray, birthday card, and a sweet daddy/daughter moment at A to Z}
Then we hung out some more, and we went to dinner. He picked the place, and it was yummy! Then we headed to books a million where we all picked books and sat and read/looked. We love him so much and with his busy schedule, we just LOVED getting the entire day with him!

Girls and Boys

Before the BIG arrival of our sweet baby G, we decided we needed to have a girls day/guys day. I had asked Jade what she wanted to do....... She had a list and I was very excited about. But my pregnant body had other ideas. So we opted for a modified version of her plan.

We started out by running to Walmart to get supplies for pedicures. While we were there she wanted to buy the baby some things so I let her pick whatever she wanted to get her. We picked up nail polishes and then some junk food! When we got home we did a little photo shoot. She wanted pictures with my belly! Then we soaked our piggies and I did my best to paint her toes and mine. The last thing she requested was to snuggle me!

{Jade's piggies after paint, the goodies she picked for the baby, and last our snuggle picture- the flash was too bright and she couldn't open her eyes!}

On to the boys. Since I didn't go, I only got a few pictures after they came home. They did all kinds of stuff outside. They went fishing and hiking, playing on some equipment out in the field, then they built stuff! One thing they built together was this box to hold our wood supplies for the stove. It turned out cute and both boys were proud. I think they had a bunch of fun together doing boy stuff!
{I uploaded this picture 4 times, and never could get it to look right. But at least you can see the box! Below is the boys carrying in the box. They are so cute!}

At the end of the night we let each kids rent a movie and we watched them together. We ended up with Sole Surfer and Mr. Poppers Penguins. Jade and I bought some junk food at WM, so....... we enjoyed! We really enjoyed setting aside the entire day to spend with these two great kids! Can't wait to add a third to the list!

Take a little trip, take a little trip.......

We decided we needed a little "get a way" before the baby got here. Nothing fancy, or expensive, just a way to spend some time just the two of us with nothing else to worry about. I have a relative who is very gracious to us and she offered to keep our kiddo's at her beautiful house that sits on a lake just a few hours away. She also has another home that no one lives in, and offered for Joel and I to stay there! What a great treat she gave us!

We started off our "trip" by meeting her to drop off the kids. She started spoiling them immediately! She took them to Barns and Noble and let them pick out all kinds of stuff! After we sent the kids on their way, we went and grabbed lunch, went to a store I had been wanting to go to, and then to a natural food store where I love to shop when we are in town. After that I really wanted ice cream. We found a TCBY which is Joel's favorite and we shared some yummy yogurt.
I gave up on getting these pictures all to look good. They all kept uploading funny. After that we headed back to the house to do what any pregnant girl without her kids would do, NAP! We slept longer then intended! By the time we woke up we were ready for dinner. After searching and debating on a place we ended up eating at a really good organic restaurant. Its funny that the only thing I took pictures of was dessert! Creme Brule, my favorite!

We rented a few movies and went back to the house. We made a pallet in the floor so we could be close to each other. The house did not have a couch, only two recliners.
Here is a picture of my big bump!
We picked up the kids the next day after breakfast, and a few fun stops. The kids were swimming (she has an indoor lap pool). They had all kinds of things to tell us. They had baked, swam, learned some french phrases, played games, watched movies, ate lots of junk food, and the list keeps going. They had a blast! Before we got too far from her house, they were both asleep!

Here they are with her! I think she loved having them, ALMOST as much as they loved being there!

Our sweet girl.....

Today I am 33 weeks pregnant with our third child. I decided in the beginning that I would take pictures starting at 12 weeks, and do them every 2 weeks. In the same shirt, same location, and I would keep track of my progress. I did really well, until half way through. I missed 24 weeks, then I got 26. Missed 28 weeks, and got a 30 week shot, but not in the pink shirt. Now I am 33 weeks, and I missed 32. It seemed to get harder as time went on (and the weather wasn't always great). I decided to post the pictures I have so far. I reread the things I have written to our sweet girl. I got emotional reading all the progress we have made. I am so glad I did this. I wish I would have kept it up better, but I am thankful for what I have done and I hope keep it up for the rest of the pregnancy!

Slow cook Apple Pork Roast

Today I made a YUMMY pork roast! It was a recipe that sounded good- but a little scary because the ingredients just didn't seem to go together for me! I am going to post the recipe I did, but know that it was adapted from here.

Ingredients:

-Pork Roast

-2 apples, cored and cut in wedges (I used what I had which was one Gala and one Golden Delicious)

-2 onions, sliced in large chunks or strips

-3 cups of apple cider (recipe called for apple juice, but this is what I had)

-1 cup of beef broth

-1 bay leaf

-salt & pepper to taste

-3 Tbs Olive Oil

Heat a skillet with olive oil on Medium. Brown both sides of the pork roast, then transfer it to the crock pot. Add cider, beef broth, onions, apples, bay leaf, salt & pepper.

I cooked on high for 1 hour, then reduced to low for about 5 more hours. It was done well before this, but we weren't ready to eat it yet.

We made gravy with the juice from the roast which was perfect! I served it with Mashed potatoes, green beans, and rolls. Everyone at my house raved about it!

The picture is when I first started it. I should have taken an after picture, but I didn't.