A change in direction

I was at Big Lots the other day when I spotted this beauty.  

There she was calling my name for me to take her home and make her over.    

Don't get me wrong.  I'm as patriotic as they come but I outgrew the Americana phase a few years back.  My mind was whirling with the possibilities as I loaded her up in the trunk.  Paint her all white?  Maybe a simple whitewash?  Nope, all she needed was a change in direction.  

When I turned her around, she was perfect.

Excuse me while I get a little deep over a basket,

 but sometimes I just need to turn around and get my focus back on Jesus.  

And that's when I feel the most beautiful.

Field Day 2011

Do you remember when field day consisted of this?

Well nowadays my kids get to have this:

What?!  I remember, just like yesterday, my field days in elementary school.  Tug of war, sprints, and long jumps.  I was usually the most un-athletic person in the class.  Not to mention the shortest and I would pray the night before field day I would get sick or something.  No such luck and one time, for some reason, they decided it would be great for me to shoot baskets.  Really, basketball?  I made it through with minimal humiliation and I think "great participation" ribbons.    Times have changed for sure but I wouldn't trade seeing how much fun my kids had that day for the world. They worked really hard this year and deserved it .  J-man made it through his first big standardized test, the TAKS.  And the Roo has gotten all E's (excellent) for conduct the entire year.  No Satisfactory for my girl.   

And it's kind of funny.  Chalene Johnson tells me all the time while I'm working out to Turbofire to think like an athlete.  And you know, I am an athlete now.  I can do things now at almost 37 that I have never been able to do and it feels great!  I wish I could do field day over again! 

Pinterest

Uh oh.  I've joined Pinterest.  

You might not see me for a few days!

(-:

Healthy Hump Day tips #1

Ok so I have been thinking back and forth about a tip day for weeks.  So here it goes:
On Wednesday's (hump day),  I would love to share with you little tips that my family and I use to keep healthy.  They are easy and I promise that I do them.  They are not huge things but when I think about all of them together, they add up to make a bigger difference in our lives.  So without further ado, my first and favorite:

1.  Substituting Greek Yogurt for sour cream, mayonnaise or anything else creamy!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE sour cream.  I would choose it over dessert.  My all time favorite snack is a sour cream and salsa mixture with tortilla chips.   Even though I don't eat that as a snack anymore, I love to put that same mixture in tacos and over taco salad.  Last week, I substituted half of the mayo in my chicken salad with greek yogurt and I couldn't tell the difference.  Next time I might just leave out the mayo and see what happens.

This is the kind that I use:

I've used others and they are much more "tangier".  This one is most like sour cream to me.

Happy Healthy Hump day!

Even I was scared of my purse

Kids:  Mom?
Me:  Yes?
Kids:  Can we have some gum?
Me:  Sure, it's in my purse.
Kids:  Never mind-we'd like to keep our fingers.  Who knows what's hiding in there?!

Some serious work needed to be done on my purse before I felt like I could tackle any other major project in my house.  This isn't mind blowing but It's a huge deal to me!  (-:  And apparently to my kids when searching for something in my purse.

First, I emptied it out, divided everything sections and threw away trash and gum wrappers.

(please excuse my ugly notebook-it used to be pretty but I have used it so much for the past 2 years and it is starting to show its age.)

I then seperated all of my papers into categories.  I am always forgetting my coupons at home so I'm hoping that if they have a place I will remember to just put them in there.  We'll see.

I found these cases at Walmart for $1.97 each.  I like that they are clear so I can see what is inside.

I created some index card labels on the fly but I'm hoping to pretty them up someday.  

And voila!  The zippered pouch holds my cell phone, earphones and gum.  And the pocket that I'm assuming is for a cell phone is used for my keys.  No more hunting!  

I cannot tell you how much better this makes me feel.

Let's see, what else can I organize today?!  

Please tell me I'm not the only one that gets excited about an organized purse.

She can't be old enough

My daughter is growing up before my eyes. But with a little help from Mommy and Daddy.  You see, she's our baby girl.  So much so that we still call her baby girl.  But we both feel that we have been kind of holding her back.  She has desperately been trying to grow up and do things on her own but I would just do them for her so everything would be fine and great.  But, the mornings and nights while getting dressed were starting to become unbearable.  What the heck?  I'm not a loosy goosy mom but this girl has got some skills.  So we needed a plan of attack.  Out of desperation and lots of prayer, I quickly googled my favorite parenting guru John Richmond.  I don't read many parenting magazines or blogs because they tend to really stress me out (I prefer looking at pretty pictures instead).  But Mr. Rosemond was there for me in the throws of post-partum and I could never thank him enough.  The very first question on his website was from a mom who had a little girl that was giving her a hard time about getting dressed in the morning.  His answer:  Set a timer for 10 minutes, if she doesn't get dressed by herself in that time, she goes to bed early.  Do this for a week and let me know how it goes.

Well of course!  Why didn't I think of that?! It was an answer to prayer for me.  

So we did it for a week except we changed that she couldn't ride her scooter to school in the morning.  And if she gives me trouble in the morning she can't have TV time in the afternoon.   And we only had one little setback.  It was Daddy's idea to give her a treat at the end of the week and his surprise to her (and me) was getting her ears pierced.  

And here she is:

(look at those shiny earrings just like mom!)

  Pray your heart out if there are parenting things you are having trouble with.  Even if you think they are too small for God;  they aren't!  If it's big to you, it's big to Him.  

Just a note:  This was after we tried the sticker chart thingy.  It worked fine but when the chart was full she just fell back into her ways.  I'm usually for positive reinforcement but for this case something just had to be done.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of the fabulous moms out there!  

I hope your was filled with lots of love and gifts like these:

(J-man's heart made out of beans)  

(Roo's perfectly painted garden scene)

I love the outtakes:

blurry, I know but I just had to put it in!

I also enjoyed a great church service, lounging by the pool with neighbors and hubby's awesome burgers with grilled sweet corn on the cob!  My choice (-:

J-man and Roo, Thank you for making me the luckiest Mom in the whole entire world.  

I love you both so much!

Love, Mommy

p.s I love you, Mom!