Busy Being Blessed

And I lost another 4.4 lbs!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so excited and proud of myself. A little bit really makes a difference!!!!
Also, my incredible Team-mate Allene sent me a WW calculator and book!! This will make it even easier to do!
Keep praying for me to keep on keeping on!!!

and I am down 3.4 lbs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so excited!!!!!!!!
I need to up my water, up my exercise and make sure I have plenty of fruits and veggies to snack on. I hope next week is even better!
Jeremiah had a great Birthday. He is such a sweet boy and I love him so much.
Please be praying for Josiah. He just hurt his private area…Got it closed in a drawer. :/

Well today is the big day! Biggest Loser HK Style starts today! My weight? 183.8 (don’t laugh at me, I know it’s awful!). My goal weight, by the time this round is over, is 150. Think I can do it? Pray for me!

I know this song is not about weight loss, but it’s really encouraging me today, so I thought I’d share it with you! Don’t Miss Now

Not only am I doing that 36 thing, I am doing a Decluttering challenge, and now a weightloss challenge (Biggest loser at HK). Thankfully the last two overlap with the first, or else I’d consider myself insane.
Any ideas for a real weightloss meal plan? I know my body does better with low carbs, but I’m not doing Atkins.
Whatcha think?

Another year down. Doesn’t 2012 sound unreal to you?

This is going to be a big year for us, I can feel it. For one thing, I have joined in an exciting challenge on a forum. It’s a spin off that huge thing 1001 in 2012 – which I would never attempt in a million years! Instead we are focusing on 36 things to do in 366 (this year is a leap year!). I really don’t feel comfortable sharing the whole list here, because not just friends read the blog. If you’d like to know what I’m doing in detail, I will email it to you if you comment about it and make sure to include your correct email.

Here is the bones of it though!

1. Get the kitchen/laundry area/pantry organized

2. Change boys’ rooms and master bedroom back

3. Make a menu, Implement and STICK TO IT.

4. Work on songs to get a full lullaby album made

5. Complete freezer meals

6. Get little boys potty trained ( Jamin is almost there! Jace has just started )

7. Get HA stuff shipped!!!!!!!

8. Divvy up tax check, buy those items

9. Decorate DOWNSTAIRS

10. Paint in most rooms

11. Me – shower each day before doing anything else

12. Ceiling lights (with or without fan) in following rooms (need brother to help):

13. Get legal things done

14. Get all major appointments set

15. Purpose to NOT use computer until at least one chore is completed!

16. Organize shed

17. Blog at least once a week

18. Take a photo of each child at LEAST once a month (more hopefully!)

19. Have Jeremiah ready for 3rd grade math by the end of the school year

20. Get to church at least 80% of the time and be ON TIME

21. ^ Which means work on making sure boys are more healthy
- make sure kids and I take vitamins

22. Be the best wife I can be

23. Be the best Mama I can be

24. Go out on a date with hubby 1x a month, have home dates 3x a month

25. Go out as a whole family 1x a month

26. Have a family game time 2x a month

27. Let the kids help with cooking/baking more

28. Focus on THANKFULNESS in everything

29. Read my Bible DAILY

30. Lose at least 24 lbs in the year (but more is better)

31. Memorize at least one verse per Month with the boys

32. Get some digital scrapbook pages made – at least one per month per boy, so four per month.

33. Have the kids trained with Accountable Kids program by 2013

34. Put home videos to discs in order

35. Drum up business with websites

36. Get the garage cleaned out and organized

The boys are getting SOOOOOOO big. Jace is such a big rotten menace it’s not funny! I mean it’s like he has 25 hands. But he’s still cute as a button. His smile can melt anything. He is also a great hugger and snuggler so no one can stay upset with him for long. Jamin is almost totally potty trained. He even went two nights being totally dry! Unfortunately he woke up this morning wet. So he has to start over (I told him he can wear undies to bed if he wakes up dry every morning in a week). He is on vacation from Speech class, so I’m working extra hard with him at home on speaking correctly. He’s doing great! Josiah is having a really good week for the most part. He is listening and focusing pretty well. He’s drawing a lot this week too. Jeremiah is back at the daily grind of school! He’s having some attitude issues, but nothing awful. It’s been kind of interesting to see how all of them are reacting to my new “rule” of no t.v. or computer until at least ONE chore is done. I was expecting them to be really awful about it, but they have actually been pretty good about it! What a blessing! I know it helps when I hold myself to the same standard, so I’m a better example.

Well I hope you have a wonderful start to your year! I’d love to hear your resolutions, or just your new plans, if you’d like to share.

God bless you and yours! <3

Jeremiah is almost done with school for the year. We have decided to homeschool full-time next year. I am super excited about it, as I almost have all the curriculum this time, and have looked through it and love it! I am going to use McRuffy Math and the rest (LA, Reading, Soc. Studies, Science) we’ll use Christian Light Education. We will use additional Spelling, History and maybe Health gathered from different sources. I hope to have an extensive list of what we use, as well as our schedule, posted at least before school starts.

I am just so excited! I’m also very thankful to have gotten EVERYTHING used, so decently priced, so far! I know I will need to get most (if not all) of the workbooks brand new, but that’s fine. I almost have ALL K, 1st, 2nd and 3rd items bought! That is quite a feat for us.

I have to brag on my boys a bit! Jeremiah wrote part of his first song. It is really beautiful, too. Including all spelling errors (only one really!): I love you Lord. I love you more then anything. You are the light of my heart. You are the BEST. /// Isn’t it beautiful?! And today Josiah read 9 Hooked on Phonics books! He is so proud of himself and I am so proud of him too. I love my big guys!!!!

Couponing is going well. Now that we have started and I’ve gotten pretty used to it, I know there’s no way I can go back! I really feel awful buying anything full price now. I am going to start including my couponing stuff on here too. This is going to be a family blog, budgeting/couponing blog, homeschooling blog, and more! It won’t be so boring anymore – I am going to post on it. Yes, some posts may be really small, but that’s fine with me!

Oh, tomorrow we are going to the PBS Kids at the Park! The boys have been counting down the days for a month and a half and it’s finally almost here! They are going to meet the Kratt brothers from Wild Kratts and Zaboomafoo. I hope to have lots of photos!

God bless and hope you’re all doing great! <3

well this has been a really interesting couple of weeks.

1 – homeschooling. it has been a rough time trying to homeschool. i know if i were a more organized individual it would all be fine, but i am not getting anything done, including homeschooling. we were considering putting jeremiah in public school, and (no offense to anyone) the thought was terrifying to me. i called around the Christian schools, and there is NO WAY we could afford them. i mean, even if my parents went halve-sies with us we still couldn’t afford it. so i was truly about ready to put him into school. then i went back to a thought that i’d dismissed in the past: k12′s Hoosier Academies. it’s a hybrid school – 2 days in the classroom, and 3 days at home. the curriculum is provided, as is any help from teachers if the parent needs it. a friend at church is a teacher there. i am actually excited about everything, except for the driving! it’s about a half hour drive. i’m still trying to figure this out though so we’ll see what we come up with. his semester starts feb. 1.

2 – gas leaks. we have had three gas leaks in the past two months. two outside, one inside. the inside one was paired with one of the outside ones this week. we had to go to our nextdoor neighbor’s house while the gas co. looked at it. it was very scary and i’m thankful i smelled it and that we are ok!

3 – sold extra van. anyone remember the van we were gifted a few years back? when the couple gave it to me, the wife said “i hope this is a blessing and not a burden for you.” ever since then, it has honestly been pretty much a burden. things kept going wrong, it was very hard to get the kids in/out of it, one thing after another. in order to qualify for food stamps, we finally we sold it to my parents for a few dollars, in hopes my dad could sell it. well, he finally did! we were so amazed and felt so blessed to have this money to help us out! now we think that it was God saying, “here, you guys are gonna need this soon.” (more on point 5)

4 – 3/4 boys sick – vomiting, dia. josiah is the only one spared – he is full of energy, totally himself. jamin seems to be the worst-off. please pray that they heal quickly. i may have to take them to the dr if it doesn’t clear up soon. jerry and i are also not feeling well, but the vomiting hasn’t hit us (please pray it doesn’t!)

5 – pothole, resulting issues. this is the biggie. the other day, jerry hit a pothole. the tire was blown. he tried to get the tire off to no avail. he had it towed to get it replaced, but they couldn’t get it off either! he had to leave it there overnight, resulting in a missed night of work. he had to wait until today to take it to another place for them to remove it. it took several men 3+ HOURS to get it off, so what should have cost very little ended up costing a lot. and they said “oh by the way, sorry man, the rim is destroyed” oh really? great. thanks so much. so we thought it would be 55 more bucks. still a lot, but not awful. well, when he got back over there, he was told that was the wrong price, that it was actually 110, but they’d drop it to 90. wow what a steal! so we are out 400 and some odd dollars. AND the brakes are going to go out at any moment. this means who knows when we can pay our house payment, i have to transfer money out of the newly created boys’ savings accounts, and it just stinks.

pardon my pity-party. i am so frustrated right now! i realize how blessed we are and i’m so thankful for all that we have and all that the Lord does for us. it just seems like we can’t cut a break. please keep us in your prayers.