(Sorry I've neglected posting on here! Recent blogs: OCT 28 5,000 miracles... give or take... Haha! Yesterday was SO much fun!! I got up while everyone was sleeping (miracle 1) and got myself dressed and at least some makeup on. Jen and I loaded up her vehicle and away we went to our scrapbooking day. We got there FOUR MINUTES EARLY and I didn't get her lost. (miracle 2-20- I figure that counts as at least 19 gracious acts of God ) We got to sit and visit sans kids for 4 hours!! (miracles 21-3,000) Can you imagine?!?! Gary brought the kids by so I could feed Grace miday and went to his mom's where he could be fed for free.) Jennifer got tons of title's done for her pages that I know she's been wanting to get to for months. I got at least 5 layouts done (I did work a little when we got home) and so Tyler's birth and the year 2004 are pretty much done. (miracle 's 3001-3005) I want to go back and do some more embelishing, titling and journaling but the photo's are printed and down on paper in order. I also got all of January 2005 done. YIPPEEEEE!!!! (Miracle 3,006) We are going to tempt fate and God's humor and try to get together a couple times a month to scrap... with or without kids. :) Between that and my time with Melissa I could really get moving here! Maybe through May by years end! Anyways, we actually left Melissa's house a minute EARLY and got borders done that Melissa had planned! (miracles 3,007-9) I even remembered to give Jenn back her baby clothes that Grace is done with. That was actually kind of emotional. She wears so many hand-me downs that it's literally painful to give them up. This turns out to be a blessing (having to give them up) because we all know I'd be the old lady with 259 bins of kids clothes in the attic... and really that's kind of selfish isn't it? I do have PLENTY that I will be keeping so don't worry! I got grace fed and dressed in her christening dress we got as a gift when she was born. Since we don't do christening and I got it after we had her dedicated I decided it would make a great princess dress for Halloween (which sounds really immoral to say somehow ) and I hope to have her wear it again for Christmas. I took... oh... about 40 pictures of her in it because it is JUST SO BEAUTIFUL!!!! (miracles 3010-3050 b/c I had TIME). Then i even had to take it off of her and put her onsie, turtleneck, jeans and socks on and then put it back on top of all that so she wouldn't freeze for Trunk or Treat over at the community center. (Wasn't it just 85 two weeks ago?) We also got Tyler up from his nap and dressed in warm clothes and his Thomas costume from last year. oh yes -- it still fit! (Miracles 3050-3055) We're good parents and don't want him to be deprived of lifelong scaring so we'll probably make him wear it next year too. I got some photos of him on the front porch with the pumpkins and away we went. I thought we were running late but we got there inplenty of time. (miracles 3055-3060) Josh and the in-laws joined us and Tyler had a blast. Thomas was a big hit this year! Stephanie got him a Thomas bucket for his candy which was hilarious. Lots of kids had pillowcases which I thought SURE would prompt Gary to tell of his trick-or-treating days (OMG THE BROWNS JUST SCORED!!!) with pillowcases... I was dissapointed though. I DID, however, get to hear of Josh having to be a pirate every elementary school year ... Oh....poor baby. That's so in now! We must have seen 5 Captain Jack Sparrow's (which reminded me of your puppy Jackie V.!! You've got to dress him up in some dreds and a hat!!) Seeing these little kids with black pencil all over there faces and dreds was hysterical to me. We ran into the Neely Crew and dufus me neglected to introdce them to my family... and Gary. Turns out Garys' never actually met Jason and not surprisingly this completely slipped my mind till later in the car when he asked who was carrying Jack around for her. (He asked sarcastically- he knew.) Aubrey was beautiful in her princess costume with her updo! Had it not been raining I'd have tried to get pictures of all of us but the cold and the rain and 3 men who were ready to watch football kept us moving. Also I had two hats on Grace including the one that came with the dress and she looked more like a pilgrim in lace than a princess. She was also hidden by 3 blankets. I also saw Melanie and her fmaily and Angie and hers. I was satisfied with the event. We got a nice long hayride, plenty of pictures, plenty of candy, plenty of compliments on how cute my kids are, and I saw all 3 people I know from the church that were going to be there. (miracles 3061- 3075) We left there, hit McDonalds drive through where Tyler so politely said "Hi. I'm Tyler. I'd like a cheesburger with no onions and a diet coke and that will be it." It's such a shame that they can't hear what kids say in there... although most of the time I'm sure that's a blessing! We got behind an older lady who neglected to pay at the first window which got the employees all turned around. They sorted it rather quickly and got our order right. It's noteworthy though because we have recently watched a show about how McDonalds is taking over the world. Apparently they are new in the China market and the first ever drive throughs so the chinese have to teach them how to do a drive through. Gary and I (jokingly) said she must be chinese. oh, come on! That was kind of funny... anyways we went back to the Bush's so we could see Josh and watch the OSU game. We left at halftime which was about 40 minutes too late for me and Tyler. I was so tired and Tyler was beyond tired. (It's not surprising how craby he was this morning but that's another story). By the time we got home and all unpacked and underessed and the kids in bed it was almost time for Grace to eat again so that's when I finished my pages. AHHH.... what a fun day! PLUS the kids were good for Gary so it's likely he'll watch them again!! Miracles 3,076-5,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

26 Oct 2007

happy birthday Gary!

website fun... Happy Friday folks! Grace is 23 weeks. Gary is 30 and Tyler has only 2 weeks until he is 3! Whew! Bored on this third rainy day? I feel so bad we are getting all this rain and i'm complaining about it and in California they'd give anything for a few days of rain! I wanted to share a couple cool webistes I've found this week. One is www.realage.com You can take a quiz on there (about 5-10 min) and it will tell you the difference between your calendar age and your real age. My calendar age is 28.2 and my real age is 25.6! yay me! It would go down a lot if I took a vitamin and ate breakfast on a regular basis. Lowering my BMI woulnd't hurt either. It was very interesting to me and there are tons of links to educate you. I also found in my results a link to a quiz about what you are teaching your kids about health. We got 8 out of 10 stars. Not too bad! We also both heard this week about a site that gives you a questionaire that tells you which presidential candidate you agree most with. Gary and I had the same top 5 but in a different order. It was interesting too. www.votehelp.org be sure you look at the you vs candidate graph which explains how they get the results. Another one is http://www.selectsmart.com/president/2008.html I"m off to go try it! Have fun! 22 Oct 2007 Another 10 years... As we watched the Indians fall out of sinc with how to play baseball at some points over the past week Gary and I talked about the past games we've watched. Back when we were becoming friends in October of 97 we had similar heartbreak watching the Indians in whichever dorm lounge we could find them in. During the game last night I made the comment that if it takes them another 10 years to get this close that Grace will be 10 and Tyler will be getting ready to turn 13. Yikes! He had to add his most popular phrase... "It's just so frustrating being a Cleveland fan." Yea, but it makes us stronger right? That which does not kill us..... Speaking of which I ought to call my dad and be sure he didn't have a heart attack.... GO CAVS!! :) 18 Oct 2007 18 Oct 2007 Another day ... still no dollars. GO TRIBE!!!!!!!!! Also Grace is 5 months today! She decided to celebrate with her first runny nose. All together now "Awww--eeeeewwww!!!!!!!!!" She weighs 15 lbs according to our weigt together minus my weight on our scale. I thought she was big until I met a friend of Gary's at Target the other day who's son- same age- weighs 21 lbs and my friend from Mansfield who's son is 2 months older than Grace is in 12-18 month clothes!!! She's still my peanut!! She's small but she's a chunk let me tell you!!! I'm in the process of going through the 300 pix that my friend Melissa took for us this summer and deciding which to have printed. I"m so annoyed because again this is one of those things that we stay-at-home mom's have to sacrifice. I can't get every picture i want because that would have been over 100$. I've got it narrowed down to about 55$ including tax and shipping but that's a heafty price tag! Thankfully my dad has offered to pay for a photo sitting for Grace so we'll let him pay for Christmas pictures. :) In other news -kind of related- we are officially in the process of renting our Mansfield house (ie The Summer Cottage). We recieved two applications and credit checks last week. I felt like both had positives and negatives but the credit scores where very different so we went with the people who's scores were higher. Gary had a much stronger opionion on the matter and since I just want him to take care of it everything worked out. He called them and they accepted so they are in the process now of paying the deposit (which will pay the realtor who helped in the process) and getting utilities in thier names. They will pay first months rent Nov. 1 and move in the second. Gary will have to make a couple trips over to Mansfield this weekend and we'll be shelling out some money upfront but we'll make it back. It comes out of the savings account so I'm so thankful we have that! We've got our credit cards paid off completely and we really don't want to be using them ever again if we can help it! Gary is noticably more relaxed about our financial situation since this has transpired. I'm waiting until we have the first months rent in our account before I get too excited. As we go through this and you hear stories of all the people who wanted the house and the financial difficulties they are presented with I've been just astounded by how uneducated people are about money in our country today. I'm so thankful that it was only a couple years into our marriage that it was explained to us how much of a slave you are to debt. It really does lord over you and consume you- as does every penny you make! So many (us included) have every cent spent before we get it. Where does that kind of thinking come from? When you live paycheck to paycheck it's so hard and then you have society telling you to just take out a loan on a car or that meal out you want or that dress or pair of shoes... put your groceries on the credit card- you get paid next week... but then something happens (it always does!) and before you know it instead of paying that bill off every month you are paying the minimum to get by and you realize that you'll be 50 before it's paid off. I think the thing that hit us the most was that we'll finish paying off our school debt the year before Tyler leaves for college. This first time we realized that we also found that we'd still be paying on our credit cards if we never paid more than the minimum and the ammount it would cost us in intrest was downright sinful. We (I) learned and began to understand the concept of compounding intrest working for and against you. Did I miss the math class where we learned that? Where was I when an expert said that saving a dollar a day would net you hundreds of thousands over time? Where was I when the lesson on paying more than the value of your home in intrest over 30 years was given? And of course (as we DEFINATELY KNOW NOW) your house is only worth what someone will pay for it!!! I was just floored when we learned these things and again, i"m so thankful that we learned them young!!! I'm also (and this is why I share all this) so thankful that I have a husband who is good at helping me remember these things and stick to the goals we've made together. We want to help our kids go to college and we want to be able to retire and not count on others to help us. We want to be debt free and know that we own a house free and clear and the bank can't ever take it away. I don't want to have to sell my furniture and cars and wedding ring to pay back something I should never have borrowed in the first place. Some people will say that any debt is wrong and I"m not sure I'd go that far. Most people at this moment in time could never save up to buy a house in cash- does that mean they shouldn't ever buy? That's up to them but I'm SO thankful we bought within our means or I would be working two jobs right now- one to pay for the house and one to pay for childcare while I worked! Some would say you should never buy anything until you have the cash to buy it. My grandparents lived that way their entire lives and they live well. They are both retired, in thier 80's and travel all over the country. They spend smart but they are able to live comfortably and they have security. They are also able to be generous!! I want that! I want to be able to just randomly buy things for people when I see a need. I know that so many of us have struggles beyond our control and we are honestly doing everything we can to get back in "the right" and have been blessed by the generosity of others. I want to be that generous person because I know that I"m only where I am now out of the generosity of others. We've saved thousands of dollars on gifts of clothes, food, formula, diapers, and toys over the years. I also want Tyler and Grace to know that they won't be paying for our mistakes thier entire lives if something happens to us. So as I sit here, a stay-at-home mom making no dollars for my work, I'm so thankful because in the end the dollars don't matter. I'm raising my own children and you can't put a price on that. The sacrifices are worth it and today when Gary called and said we could go ahead and spend that 55$ on pictures it made me cry- because we have it. Gary works hard and many many unpaid hours for every cent he earns. We both work hard to keep our expenses down and save. We also tithe and I will tell you to my dying day that I believe God has blessed us beyond measure for that one act of obedience. Our sins are enourmous in number but that's one area it's nice to say we've been obedient. Another credit to Gary who makes sure that's the first check we write every month. Many times in the past 7 years the end number on the account didn't give much for groceries and gas but we've never been stranded and we've never gone hungry. We don't always eat things we'd like (ask Gary about PB&J and leftover pot pie nights!) and we hardly ever buy things we'd like but we count ourselves blessed. Hopefully the house (we are still paying on) in Mansfield will be a blessing to these people and the Lord will be glorified. If that's what He has for us then maybe I get to be generous a little early in life. Keep reminding me God knows what he's doing with us because sometimes it SO hard to see it!!! And please pray they pay rent every month! Currently reading : I Love You More: How Everyday Problems Can Strengthen Your Marriage By Dr. Les Parrott III Release date: 01 August, 2005