A Journey To Share

Once Upon A Time...

2011-05-15T22:16:00.000-07:00

I started a journey and was going to write all about it. Then about a year ago, my whole world was flipped upside down! Honestly, looking back at this year, I can't even understand how I made it to this point. But a year later, I know that I want to continue my journey. I have started taking the steps to get back on track and hopefully I can stay that way. There are so many amazing things - good and bad - that has happened this year that it would be impossible to write about them all right now. So, I hope that this week to post one of the major events each day just to catch everyone up on what's been going on. So, I have no idea if anyone still reads my blog since I haven't written anything in over a year but perhaps I will be able to slowly build back up a following... So, the journey begins... again.

My Son Is A Blessing

2010-04-21T07:17:00.000-07:00

So, I have been spending a lot of time sharing about my new baby girl. Whether it is on Facebook, email, blogging, or people visiting, she has certainly been quite the center of attention. She is quite the beautiful blessing to me but I certainly can't dismiss my son, who is also a blessing. My son, Tyler, is quite an interesting character. While, many times he makes me want to just SCREAM, he is also a tremendous blessing to me and my family. While, we often butt heads, he is an amazing kid with a good heart. This is my son, Tyler:

This our very first family picture. Tyler was 8 1/2 years old in this picture.

This is Tyler's very first concert. Where did I take him, you ask? To see the Barlow Girls! :-)

This is Tyler at Halloween a couple of years ago.

This is Tyler and I running on the beach in San Diego. This was his first time to the beach.

This is Tyler just before he had surgery for a hernia... definitely was not all smiles afterward.

Christmas of 2008

The family at a wedding in San Diego in the summer of 2009.

So, these are just a few of the pics I have of my son. And, hopefully, soon we will be celebrating some good news in regards to him as well. We are ONLY steps away from finalizing the adoption with him. The only thing that we are waiting for is the birth records from the hospital where Tyler was born. But since he is already ten years old, the hospital has to go offsite where ever they are stored and get the records. And, in addition, the hospital is in Arizona. So, I'm sure that we are not at the top of their priority list. But I sure do wish they would hurry up because they are the last step before we can make everything official. So, hopefully, within the next month everything will be OFFICIAL!! And then we are going to have a PARTY!! Woo hoo!!

So, I hope everyone's week is going well. And I did want to make a shout to my beautiful friend Bobbi because yesterday was her birthday! She is a beautiful person inside and out! I know that she is a blessing in some way to pretty much everyone she meets. :-) I was going to post a picture of Bobbi and I but for some reason the "Upload Photo" button is not working right now. Perhaps I will be able to add it later. But for now I want to post this or I probably never will.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOBBI!!

Newborn Photo Shoot

2010-04-18T13:55:00.000-07:00

Man!! I am such a slacker on my blog!! I said I was going to post these pictures on Monday and now it's almost another Monday. One day I shall get the hang of this. Well, here are just a few of the pictures that were taken at the complimentary photo shoot of Tariana, compliments of Jessica Hekman!! She was so kind and did a great job cause Tariana was SO fussy. Thanks so much Jess!!

I hope that you all enjoyed the pics! I was really blessed by Jessica doing these for us. I never really thought I would be in to this stuff so much but once I got the pictures back I was just SO excited!

It's A GIRL!!!

2010-04-11T19:14:00.001-07:00

I know that this post is LONG over due... but I had my baby 2 weeks ago (and 2 days)!!!!! I had a beautiful baby girl!! Her name is Tariana Lynn Heppenstall.

She was born on March 26, 2010 at 8:21pm. She weighed in at 9 pounds and 10 ounces!! That's right, she's heavy! :-) And she reaches 20 1/2 inches long. That sounds big but amazingly everyone has been telling me that she doesn't look like a 9 pound baby. I guess that's a good thing cause I never saw a 9 pound newborn before so I wouldn't really know. :-) Baby Tariana is doing well now but we had some worries to begin with. We didn't tell anyone, but about 3 weeks before she was born, we found that she only has one kidney. So, we had to really keep a close eye on her to make sure that she was peeing enough so that we would know that the other kidney is working fine. Apparently many people out there only have one kidney and we were told not to worry. And she has been just fine, kidney is working great!! Yay!! :-) The other small scare was that Tariana was breathing kind of rapidly and on the day that we were supposed to be discharged, Tariana was admitted to the NICU to run some tests and do observations. She was there for that night and two more days.... ugh. That was SO not fun!!! But we were able to bring her home and she doing just great!! For those of you that were aware of these situations, I thank you all for your prayers and support!! So, since we have been home, it has been pretty tiring. I have NO baby experience so it has been quite an adjustment. I absolutely LOVE my baby girl and I am very thankful that she has been a pretty easy baby so far. Her fussiness that she has had so far has been frustrating for me but I know that it is very minor compared to some others I have heard about. So, thank you Tariana for taking it easy on Mommy!!! But since Tariana has been born, we have been showered with the blessings of loved ones. Thank you to everyone has come to see us!!

So, right now I have written that much and I'm already tired. So, right now I will leave you all with some pictures of Tariana from her first week home :-). My, how she has changed since Day 1!! Also, I would love some input on some good, quick 'n' easy recipes for a family of three to make things a little easier.

In addition, tomorrow I am going to try to post some other pictures that were taken of Tariana on Thursday. A wonderful lady offered to do Newborn photos for us at no charge. She was so nice and Tariana was so fussy. And I love how the pictures turned out!!

I hope everyone has a great start to their week tomorrow!!

What A Great Week!!

2010-02-19T21:00:00.000-08:00

So many awesome things to share!! Where to start, where to start!!.... Well, let me jump back to Monday....

MONDAY, MONDAY...
Since my son had Monday off from school, I decided that we would go meet up with my wonderful friend, Heather, so that her and I could talk and the kiddos could have a bit of play date. Her kids are a lot younger than Tyler so sometimes that's a bit hard for because he wants to do things that they can't. But the way I see it, that will give him good practice for being a great Big Brother!! :-) Heather was so wonderful as to make us some PB & J sandwiches with some sliced apples and baby carrots on the side. And then, of course she spoiled us with brownies sprinkled with Reese's bites on top. They were so good! Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera and have no pics. Such a disgrace to the blog world!! In addition to this wonderful-ness, Heather has also been blessing us with lots of baby stuff that they are no longer using. And the beauty of this stuff is that it is well taken care of. It's almost like getting brand new stuff. Here's some of the stuff she's already given us. She says there could be more but she doesn't want to overwhelm me.

Thank you Heather!!!

AWESOME LUNCH
On Wednesday, my friend, Jessica, invited myself and two other friends to her place for a home-cooked lunch. It was so absolutely delicious! I was about 15 minutes late (which I had already expressed that I would be) so when I got there everyone else was doing their part to help cook. Jessica is so funny because she under estimated how long everything would take to cook so we all ended up helping her which was fine by me because that just meant more fellowship time. YES!! The only thing I don't like about it is that I always feel lost in someone else's kitchen. But other than that, good times!!! Here's some pics of the chefs. They did WAY more work than me since I was late. Somehow, I FAILED miserably to get a picture of the host. I am such a bad blogger!!I partly blame it on my hubby's camera cause he changed all the settings and I had to get it back to normal for me, which took a little bit of time. :-( So, only pics of Veronica and Grace.

The food was SO good. Jessica decided to make this Chicken Chili recipe and it turned out SO delicious. I was going back for more even though I know that I shouldn't have. Here's a pic of the recipe with picture in the cookbook of how it is SUPPOSED to look. I personally think the chili Jessica made turned out WAY better than the picture looks!:

Here's the pics of all the goods: (And I somehow managed to not get a pic of the chili in it's serving dish all alone. I really gotta get better at this!!) Chicken Chili, Homemade whole wheat bread fresh out of the bread maker, with veggies on the side. Mmm!!!!

Here's my first serving. I, of course, went back for seconds (but no pic).

And we certainly can't forget about dessert!! Jessica made some mini brownie bites which were quite delicious. I'd like to say that I only had this one that I took a picture of... but... I had many more. Not good. She also put a whole bunch of Hershey kisses for us, which I stayed away from since I already had so many of these little brownies. Mmm!!

After we were all stuffed, we had some good time fellowshipping. It was so great to be there. Jessica has been living out of California for a couple of years and it is SO good to have her back. This was day was kind of like a flash back in time. What a blessed time!!

TRIPLE THREAT THURSDAY
Thursday was a big day for me. There were 3 great things that happened. First things first.... I had my regular doctor's appointment for the baby. Baby checks out absolutely healthy and everything looks good. Yippee!! I am now 36 weeks pregnant. I'm really starting to look the part now, huh? .... finally. :-)

I also found out at my Dr's appt that I could potentially find out the sex of the baby. Since one of my glucose tests (out of three) turned out to be a little bit high, they want to have another ultrasound on March 4th to check the weight of the baby. If I wanted to, I could very well find out the sex of the baby at this time. This is a tough one for me. I have already waited this long so I kind of tell myself that i could just wait until the baby is born.... BUT..... then there's that part of me that says "The information is RIGHT THERE!!! Just find out!!". What do you guys think I should do? It will be hard not to find out. :-)

The second thing that was great about Thursday was that I got to have a one-on-one lunch with my WONDERFUL friend, Grace. She was at lunch with us on Wednesday, which was wonderful, but I ALWAYS love my one-on-one time with people. We decided to go to Baker's, which is a classic, favorite of ours. We've been going there together since high school. It's not the healthiest but we always find things that fit in to our budget. :-) Sorry no pics! So busy chatting it up that I didn't even think to take a pic. :-(

And now the third thing that was great about Thursday.... We went to the playoffs. Thursday was our first (and last) game of the playoffs. We had such an amazing game! The other team was by far better than our team but our girls probably played one of our best games of the WHOLE season!! I was (and am) SO proud of them! While I am a little relieved that the season is over (cause I'm exhausted), I am really going to miss the girls. They all such amazing personalities. I never went to a practice or game without one of them making me laugh. :-) So, thank you to Natalie, Lydia, Jillian, Mariah, Jamie, Caley, and Tiffany for making this season such a wonderful experience for me. And thank you to Matt McCormick (our head coach) for asking me to assist him and join the journey. It has been a great ride!! And I leave Triple Thursday with some great pics from the game last night - compliments of Mrs. Bobbi! :-) First pic is of me and Matt, the wonderful head coach. And the second pic is of both teams praying at together at half court - gotta love that!!! Enjoy the rest of the pics!!

Congratulations RAVENS!!!
T.G.I. Friday!!!
And now it is Friday! Woo hoo! While it has been a great week, I am exhausted and glad it's Friday. And for Friday I have a bit of great news.... I just got hired as an Instructional Paraprofessional for the Redlands Unified School District!! And they don't even care that I am 9 months pregnant and I will be on maternity leave within a week. How awesome is that!?!?!? Another thing that is great about this is that I substituted in the class that I will be working in for about a week before getting hired and I already know that I get along with the teacher I will be working with and I already know what to expect (for the most part) from the job and the students. YES!! That pretty much wraps up this wonderful week.... but unfortunately with all this GREAT stuff, the week ended kind of on a bummer....

Taylor and I were planning a surprise "Big Brother" dinner for Tyler tonight and we were gonna make one of his favorite dinners, which would be spaghetti with garlic bread, salad, and some fruit on the side. And I was going to make a cake and decorate it for the big brother. We also bought Tyler this shirt that we thought was really cool, which says "Big Brother" on it. Tyler is still quite insecure about his place in this family so we want to make sure that he knows that a baby joining the family is a good thing and that that does not put him out of the family. But then something unfortunate happened..... Tyler's school called me at almost noon to tell me that Tyler was sick and needed to be picked up. So, Tyler actually ended up being sick in bed for the rest of the day and we didn't do the Big Brother dinner. It's a good thing that he didn't know about it or else he would have been REALLY upset. But here's the pic of the shirt we got for him. What do you guys think?

So, that is my wrap-up of my wonderful week. What is in store for the weekend??? Who knows... Guess it depends on how Tyler is feeling but we will definitely have to keep it low-key so he can get some rest. Have a GREAT weekend everyone!!

For The Friend On The Deserted Island!! :-)

2010-02-16T10:18:00.000-08:00

Hello All!!

As you know I have a friend who is also pregnant but she has been on bed rest for quite some time. And since she was unable to come to the baby shower, I told her that I would post lots of pictures so that it would feel like she was there. So, now I am FINALLY getting to do that... so sorry Teresa for not getting to this sooner. So, for anyone who was not able to actually be at the shower, I hope you all enjoy these photos. As nervous as I was about the shower, I actually really enjoyed it and thought it turned out well. :-)

Enter baby shower! Decorations & Party Favors! :-)

Now, on to some food! Mmmm!!! It was so good!! My mom was awesome and cooked everything (with the exception of fruit trays and desserts). But the REALLY good stuff was all my mom!! And it was all filipino. Everyone's tummy was happy! :-)

This is the food table. I wish I would have taken pictures before everyone started devouring the food but... live and learn :-) And then, of course my plate. Mmmm.... Goodness!!!

This is Ashley. She is one of the teacher's assistants in my son's class. Apparently they tell me that she never eats anything but on this day she piled a mountain of food on her plate. I had to get a pic of her chowing down!

And the wonderful cake! Got it from Stater Bros. Marble cake with chocolate frosting. Mmm! I enjoyed it very much! :-)

And here are the guests! These aren't the greatest pics but I tried. I should have asked someone else to take pics so I could mingle.

Top: A mixture of people. A friend from high school, some ladies from my dad's church, and a lady that I work with (I mean... worked with. Cause I'm now on maternity leave! Woo hoo!!)
Bottom: My wonderful mother-in-law and sister-in-law. Aren't they just so cute together?? :-)

Two more pics of mixtures of people from different parts of life. Amazing the things that bring people together. :-)

Top: The mom of a couple of girls on the basketball team I coach. And a mom and her three daughters, a family that I know from church.
Bottom: My mom-in-law and sis-in-law again. My mom (in the red top) finally gets to eat. She spent most of the beginning of the baby shower cooking and making sure food was fully stocked. And there is a couple more ladies from my dad's church, Annette and Kris.

Top: A few girls from the basketball team I am coaching. ** By the way, we made it to the PLAYOFFS!! ** These girls are great.
Bottom: Some ladies from my son's school... two of them are teacher's assistants and one is a parent who volunteers in the class a lot. And then there is also Bobbi there at the table who helped me get the coaching job.

Now, on to the winners of the games. Everyone won a gift card.
1. Vickie - She won the Starbuck's gift card for winning the game for making the most words out of the letters in BABY SHOWER. She got 32 words!! Amazing!!
2. Bobbi - She won the Jamba Juice gift card for winning the game "How well do you know the mommy-to-be?" She got a total of 12 out of 14 points. I was quite impressed.
3. Daylie - She was able to catch the most people crossing their legs and saying the word "baby". I've never seen this girl so quite. She was watching everyone like a hawk. She won a gift card to Cold Stone.
4. Beverly - She won the diaper raffle. (Horrible pic, I apologize) Her prize was a dinner & a movie fun pack, which included a gift card to Chili's, two passes to the Krikorian Movie Theater, and some good movie snacks.

Now. we get to the presents. I really did not like this part. I felt like there was a huge spot light on me and I was just burning up. But I was definitely blessed by all the gifts that everyone brought. It was AMAZING!! So, I'm just going to download a bunch of the pics of the gifts. I don't think a caption is necessary for each one. The first one is me in front of all the blessings before I started opening the gifts, and the rest are all pictures of some of the gifts.

So, I know that is not pictures of ALL the gifts but I hope that makes you feel like you were at the shower. I know it's nothing like being somewhere in person but I hope that you enjoyed the walk through the baby shower! :-)

Go RAVENS!!!

2010-02-10T09:21:00.000-08:00

Last night was a big night for my girls. We had our final game of the league. If we would have lost, our season would be OVER. But if we won, we would have a 97% (pretty much a 100%) chance of going to the play-offs. Can you feel the pressure?!?!?!? Well, it was an EXTREMELY close game. The final score was 42-40!!! It was so intense. But I am SO proud of my girls because they left it ALL out there on the floor and pulled out the victory!!

I brought my camera to take pictures of the girls during the game but it was too intense that I couldn't do it. So, here's a pic of the girls at the end of the game getting their recognition from the crowd.

Playoffs on 3... 1-2-3 PLAYOFFS!!!!

Super Bowl Sunday + More Baby Shower Pics

2010-02-08T07:21:00.000-08:00

So, yesterday I went to an awesome Super Bowl Party! It was hosted by the wonderful Matt & Bobbi McCormick. They throw a great party! They had three TVs on throughout the house. My favorite one was in the garage with the ping pong table. Plus, it was cooler in there (temperature-wise) and I need to make sure that at 8 1/2 months pregnant that I keep myself cool.

Now, I have to ask... Is it strange that I went to a Super Bowl party without even knowing who is playing in the game??? I honestly had no idea until Matt told me. Then I think I didn't even watch the game at all, perhaps a few seconds. Watched the half time show for a moment and then we left.... Definitely not a football fan, here. :-)

BUT I definitely had to grub while I was there!! You can't go to a McCormick Party without getting some GOOD food! They were really smart about the food planning. They let everyone know that they were making Chili with ALL the fixings and then for everyone else to bring their favorite sides/dishes and drinks. It turned out great!!

Here's an overview of the spread. All kinds of good stuff... fruit assortments, veggie assortments, Inside out pizza, wiener dogs, chili, cookies, etc, etc.... and more stuff came after this pic was taken!!
Here's my first plate. :-)
Here's Tyler's first plate. I think I forgot to mention that I brought Tyler with me.
Here's my 2nd plate minus the fruit because I almost didn't take a picture... shame on me.

Here's Tyler's second plate.
And let's not forget a picture of the beautiful hosts!! I have been loving these two more and more everyday... such wonderful people!! I am ABSOLUTELY blessed to know them!

MORE BABY SHOWER PICS!!

I do have to say again that I was so blessed by everyone that came to my baby shower. I was overwhelmed by the amazing turn out. I only wish that I could have to talked everyone so much more while they were there. And I do apologize to anyone if I didn't get a chance to talk to you much. I'm so sorry!!

So, here are some pics of the awkward part of the shower for me. Again, I don't know why but I just feel so strange with everybody just staring at me opening gifts. But I guess I can deal with being awkward for just a little while since everyone blessed my family so tremendously!! I couldn't possibly post everything I received but I did want to put up a few pics because I got so many nice things! :-)

This was an amazing blanket that a lady from my dad's church made. I thought it was so awesome!
I also thought these duck outfits were so cute. Perfect for a boy or a girl!

This whole basket of stuff was awesome!!! I love this bib. "Let's Do Lunch. It's on Me" How cute!

In addition to all the items that are like these are just oh so cute, I also got some great necessities.... like baby monitors, a breast pump, a stroller/car seat combo travel system pack, baby bottles, etc, etc, etc.... I HAVE TRULY BEEN BLESSED!!!!

Have a wonderful Monday everyone!!!

Baby Shower!! Baby Shower!!

2010-02-06T20:24:00.000-08:00

So, yesterday I was just thinking that I should do a weekend wrap-up for last weekend... but then I realized it was already Friday and the end of the week and time to do a week in review. I never got to writing that post but I can't believe the week just flew by like that!! It is Saturday night and I am absolutely EXHAUSTED!!! Last weekend I went to a baby shower that I really wanted to post pictures for but I am feeling WAY too lazy right now. But it was a great shower with lots of GOOD food and interesting games. It was for my friend, Teresa, who I wrote about in a previous blog. And the rest of the week has been pretty busy - filled with Dr.'s appts, work for wire harness company, work for the school district, coaching basketball, dates with friends, planning for the baby shower, and of course the ever-important family time. I honestly don't know how I made it through the week. But here I am, dragging through the end of my Saturday. So, here it is... My Baby Shower!!! :-)

I must say I was SO nervous about throwing a baby shower because I have never done it before and I have only been to a couple of them myself. But I think that in the end the shower turned out pretty good - I hope. I have to definitely thank my wonderful mom and dad who were so instrumental in getting the shower together. My mom cooked ALL the food which everyone loved and my dad set up the room at the church where he works and did much of the heavy moving of tables and such for set up and clean up. I have also to thank my awesome friend, Grace, who was wonderful enough to run the show. She led all the games, passed out the cake, and wrote down all the gifts that I received. So, here's some pics from the party.

We start with the signs that pointed people to where the party was... They are nothing exciting but I just liked them :-)
Then there is the room after being decorated before anyone else showed up.
The table with all the party favors and the prizes for the games. My party favors are little To-Go boxes with ribbons. Very inexpensive at wrapwithus.com. I don't know why these pictures turned out so dark. My apologies.
Here's the spread. I actually forgot to take a picture of this first and this after people already devoured much of the food.
Here's my plate. My mom made some AWESOME filipino food, which included lumpia, pancid, chicken adobo, and fried rice. I also got some pineapples, watermelons, veggies, and a macaroni pasta - which were not filipino but OH SO GOOD!! :-)
Here is the party cake. It is marble cake with chocolate frosting from Stater Bros. It was so good... at least I thought so. :-)
Here's my slice of cake. Mmm... :-)

The winners of the games:

Vickie won the game where you have to make as many words out of the letters used in "Baby Shower". She came up with 31 words!! And she won a gift card to Starbucks.
Bobbi won the game "How well do you know the Mommy-To-Be?". I guess she knows me pretty well! :-) That earned her a gift card to Jamba Juice!
And then there is Daylie. This little girl is vicious. As you can see, she won the game where you take everyone's ribbons if they say the word "baby" or cross their legs. Well, she obviously was watching everyone like a hawk. And that earned her a gift card to Cold Stone.
The winner of the diaper raffle was my cousin, Beverly. She won a dinner and a movie fun pack, which included a $25 gift card to Chili's, two movie passes, and some good movie snacks. She said she's going to use the prize to take her mom to dinner and the movies.

After the diaper raffle we went to the part of the party that I always find to be the most awkward. I don't know why but I have always HATED opening presents in front of people. Well, apparently at baby showers, you HAVE to open the presents while your guests are still there. I don't totally get it but I guess that's the rule. And I was going to post some of the pics of the stuff that I got but I will have to save that for tomorrow because I am exhausted and don't have the patience to wait for the pictures to download. So, tomorrow there will be more pics from the baby shower. Good night everyone!! :-)

A Week In Review

2010-01-23T21:40:00.000-08:00

So, I was supposed to post again on Monday and all of a sudden it is already Saturday. The week just flew right by!! I can't believe how fast it has been going. Sometimes the days seem long but the week just flies right by. As of this week I am OFFICIALLY 32 weeks... That's 8 months!! I feel like it was just yesterday that I announced that i was pregnant. I must admit that I have had such an easy pregnancy! I have been so lucky with this one. I hope the labor is just as smooth! Here is my 32-week picture. I am definitely looking prego now!

Tuesday: This week my girls had a basketball game and they played AWESOME!! I must say that this was probably their best game all season. They played SO much like a team. I was so proud of them!! :-) I have no pictures from the game cause I am certainly to busy being in to the game but I will have to get someone to take pictures soon as the season ends mid-February (unless we go to play-offs, of course).

Wednesday: On Wednesday I went over to my friend, Teresa's, house for some pancakes. She is 3 weeks behind in her pregnancy. She has been having a bit of a rough pregnancy and is currently on bed rest so I was happy to go over there and make some pancakes. If I would have been thinking a little bit more clearly, I would have certainly brought my camera. But I'm not that bummed because the pancakes didn't look like anything special. She is stuck on her couch all day, everyday, so I am going to try to go over there every Wednesday morning and either bring her breakfast or make her breakfast. Teresa is an old acquaintance from high school. I say acquaintance because I don't think either one of us would say we were friends in high school. We got along but I we didn't ever hang out. But shortly after I became pregnant we reconnected and have been bonding and building a relationship as we go through our pregnancies together. Another hilarious thing is that her husband's name is Todd and they are going to name their daughter Taelyn. That's all T's - just like us!! Cool, huh? Perhaps that's only cool to me. :-)

Terecita & Teresa. Can you believe my name means "Little Teresa" but I am the giant. Believe it or not, I am 3 weeks ahead of her. :-)

In addition, our adoption social worker that has been doing our home study came by to see us and he gave us our "official" letter stating that our home study was approved. That is so nice to have. And a brief update on the court case is that birth rights were officially terminated on December 14th of 2009 and we have since then just been in the 60-day waiting period to see if the birth parents appeal. As of today, neither parent has appealed. YAY! If after the 60 days no one has appealed, then we can probably finalize by March/April!!! However, if one of the parents do appeal, there will be a minimum of a 6-month appeal process. Grr... So, I really hope they don't appeal.

Friday: On Friday morning I had to go in for a 3-hour glucose test. That meant that I had to get blood drawn FOUR times in 3 hours!! That was not fun. I had to fast before-hand and I was not allowed to eat or drink anything for the whole 3 hours. I also was not allowed to leave the building. Lucky for me there was another pregnant woman that had to do the test, too, that came in shortly after me so we pretty much talked the whole time which made the time fly by. But by the time the test was over, I was HUNGRY!!! So, I decided to treat myself to a pizza from The Gourmet Pizza Shoppe (a local pizza place). This place is a little bit expensive but I felt that I had earned it after getting a needle stuck in my arm four times in 3 hours.

Friday night is usually family night. So, we decided that we were going to play with some Play-Doh. I'm sure that doesn't sound to exciting but we had a good time with it. Here is what we made:

This is mine. It was a pond with rocks, and grass and tress.

This is hubby's. He made a house with a walkway, driveway, trees, his truck in the driveway, and him pushing the lawn mower out front. (He's a landscaper)

And here is Tyler's. He also made a house, with furniture inside, and his bike outside.
We were all sad when we had to take them all apart. :-(

After that, and after putting Tyler to bed, my friend invited me to go with her for a mommy's night out. We basically went to another ladies house and made cards. It was kind of strange for me cause it's not the typical thing that I do but I got some good cards out of it. Here a few pics:
Now it is Saturday and we did absolutely nothing. Tyler had apparently lost his mind last night while I was gone and so today was full of consequences... Bummer. It was such a nice day outside that it sucked to be stuck indoors.

So, that is my week in review. I tried to keep it brief - which wasn't too hard since my week wasn't too exciting. Tomorrow I hope to post some of the goodies that I made as Christmas gifts since I never posted them. I know it's a little late for that but I really wanted to get them posted on the site.

Have a great weekend!!

How Do You Daily Bloggers Do It?!?!?!?!

2010-01-17T23:36:00.001-08:00

So, I have been recently just been cruising through everyone's blogs because I haven't really been able to post any blogs myself due to time, energy, and laziness... So sad, huh? The hard part was that I actually things to post since my last post but I have been struggling to get the time. I had lots of baked goodies to share with you from Christmas - but I certainly feel that is way to late to post. I have my son's birthday, my birthday, my baby belly, and so many other things. i couldn't even begin to catch up on the last few weeks as I would have liked to. However, I really would like to get back in the groove again because I certainly miss it. I owuld love to hear any tips that you wonderful bloggers might have to help me stay consistent in blogging. Sometimes, I just feel like the days just pass by so fast. I don't know if it has to do with the pregnancy-lack of energy thing but I really hope to get posting again. Tomorrow I will definitely have another belly pic as this week I will be 32 weeks - EIGHT MONTHS!! That is so crazy. It has actually gone by so fast. I must admit that I have actually had a pretty easy pregnancy. I didn't have major morning sickness in the beginning like many do, and I don't have a lot of the aches and pains either. I am starting to have a hard time sleeping but my body pillow definitely helps with that. :-) I have also been lucky enough to still have energy and kind of be able to exercise. I was still low-level basketball with my team in my 6th month (and a little in my 7th). Now I still am pretty active at work and exercise-wise. My son and I are supposed to start going on walks together this week but it is predicted to rain a lot this week so we shall see. :-) Anyhow, this post has been a lot of rambling without any bit of structure. I do apologize for that but I felt the need to post right now. I truly hope that everyone is experiencing blessings and I will look forward to posting again tomorrow.

Holiday Newsletter

2009-12-24T09:19:00.000-08:00

This year we were going to mail out a holiday newsletter but I lost almost everyone's address when I lost my cell phone. So, instead I decided to post it and email it out. Hopefully, everyone gets a chance to read it. Merry Christmas!! Here it goes:

We hope that as we write this letter, you and your family are healthy and thankful for the blessings that you have. This year has flown by so fast that we can’t believe Christmas is right around the corner! This has been an especially trying year for us but also a very rewarding year. Many of you have been so important to the survival of our family and we truly thank you for everything that you have done for us - prayers, gifts, encouragement, support, a shoulder to lean on, and often an ear to vent to. You are all such blessings to us. Let us give you a brief update on what the Heppenstall Family is doing these days:

Taylor: Taylor is running his business in this slow economy. Business has definitely dropped due to the vast economical struggles but God continues to provide enough business to keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. This year Taylor has really been reaching out to our homeless community. He feels that God has called him to minister to them so he has been organizing food, clothing, and hygiene supplies to be given them regularly. For those of you that know the struggles that Taylor went through at the end last year and the beginning of this year, we want you all to know that he is doing MUCH better!! Praise God!!

Terecita: Terecita is working at a small manufacturing company that makes wire harnesses for old cars. The job is very simple and not that exciting but it certainly provides the opportunity to bring in some income while being able to be home with Tyler when he gets out of school. Terecita recently started coaching a basketball team at a small high school in Redlands and it has been quite an interesting experience so far.

Tyler: Tyler is currently enjoying the 4^th grade. He is getting great grades and has had perfect attendance so far this year. This is the first time in his school career that he has ever gone a whole month without missing a day of school! Many of you know the struggles we had when Tyler first moved in with us and he has practically become like a whole new kid! He has made so much progress in his behavior!! He is enjoying lots of sports and he loves all types of art. Tyler has been struggling recently with the fact that his siblings were adopted in November and our adoption with him is still not final. If you remember to pray for him and his anxiety with that, please do!

Little “T”: That’s right!! If you didn’t already know, we are expecting our first baby in March! By the end of December Terecita will be 7 months pregnant. We have not found out yet if we are having a boy or a girl and sometimes we feel like we should just wait and be surprised. We do have a name picked out if we are going to have a boy but we are struggling with a name for a girl. We would like to keep the “T” trend going but we have not been hearing any girl names that we like. We are certainly open to suggestions. As of right now, baby checks out to be completely healthy! Praise God!

So, that is a very brief update on the Heppenstall Family. We wish we could fit in everything for the year but that would take too much space. We truly are blessed to have you in our lives and we hope that you have an amazing Christmas and New Year!!

With Love,

Taylor, Terecita, Tyler, and Little “T”

The Heppenstall Family

Baby is A-Okay!

2009-12-02T10:22:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update before I go to work! :-) I just got back from the Dr for my baby check up. My belly measures just as it should and the baby's heartbeat is strong. The doctor got the results back from the sonogram and baby is healthy! Woo hoo!!! And you may not be able to tell but I am now 24 weeks (at least I will be tomorrow). I still do not know if we are having a boy or girl but I will find out before Christmas. Here is my picture of 23 weeks and 6 days. I know it might not look like it but I'm actually 6 months!! It's so crazy! I hope everyone's Wednesday has started off right! And I will look forward to writing my next update. And I think I'm FINALLY starting to feel the baby move. :-) Right now it just feels like bubbles in my stomach. :-) Have a great day everyone!

December is Here!!

2009-12-01T08:27:00.000-08:00

It's officially December! I think this is my favorite time of the year - probably because Christmas is my favorite holiday! This year we are really trying to start some of our own family traditions now that we have had Tyler for over a year and we have a baby on the way. In previous years we have always gone to my parents' and in-laws' and done whatever they do. But I think this year that we are going to stay home and make our own Christmas Family Traditions. I can hardly wait!! Last year, we already started one - which is to have hot chocolate with warm bread for breakfast on Christmas morning. We just dip the bread in to the hot chocolate. It probably sounds really weird but I really like it and always have since I was a kid. Mmmm!!!

And I think one of our new traditions that we started this year will be decorating on Thanksgiving weekend. We had our Staycation on Black Friday and we started our decorating on that day. And then we put up our Christmas Tree on Saturday. It was great! :-) I think that's the way to do it again next year! Much better for us than going out with all the craziness in the stores. We didn't do a lot of decorating but it is enough for us.

Our Christmas Tree with stockings hanging next to it. (I apologize for the bad picture. Trying to get use to the hubby's camera - very different than mine.)
The dining room table. Very simple but nice.
We also have some garland hanging up in a couple of various places and some Christmasy towels and oven mits in the kitchen as well. And we got some pretty cool Snowflake candles at the 99 Cent Store. They are great!

And since I already had marshmallows and Rice Krispies, I couldn't help but make another batch of Rice Krispy Treats! This time I added a couple of big spoonfuls of peanut butter. They were pretty darn good - although that slightly takes away from the ooey gooey-ness. But still very delish!

Another thing I love about Christmas is giving gifts. The reason that we celebrate Christmas is certainly not for the gifts but I still can't help but love to give gifts. It probably makes me feel better than the person receiving the gift when I know that it's exactly something they wanted. This year we are pretty tight on money so I'm trying to think of things that I can make for people. Some of the best things that I received for gifts in the past were things that people made. I just felt that someone put so much thought and effort in to the gift. I'm thinking about whipping up lots of cookies, brownies, and rice krispy treats to start with. But I know there's something else I would like to make for people that they can use. I can't wait!! :-)

Now, on to the reason for the season... I don't know where all of you bloggers' beliefs are but I am a firm believer that Jesus Christ is the reason why Christmas should be celebrated. I fully believe that Christ died for our sins and rose again three days later. He was the ultimate sacrifice for us so that we may join Him in Heaven. I truly believe that is the ultimate gift of sacrifice and the least we could do is celebrate His birth. Although, I must say that we certainly don't celebrate His resurrection enough. Perhaps that should change... hmmm...

What Christmas traditions do you love to do with your family and/or friends?

Operation Chocolate-Covered Kindness

2009-11-30T15:08:00.001-08:00

This post is going to be extremely brief due to being short on time but I really wanted to take a moment to plug another generous blogger. Katie over at Chocolate-Covered Katie is hosting a pageview Charity Drive. The more people that visit her blog, the more money she will raise for The Enough Project. I wish that I would have found this out earlier because the drive ends today but if you have the chance, please do stop by her site and check out Chocolate-Covered Kindness!!!

I know she is blessing so many people through this and you can help to just by stopping by her site. I hope you have moment to do so!!! Have a blessed day everyone!!

Pajama Staycation

2009-11-27T20:44:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone!! I hope that you all had a splendid Thanksgiving!! Ours was great. Sadly, I managed to take ZERO pictures. We went to eat dinner at my parents' house. I wish I would have taken pictures cause everything was so DELISH!! My dad made one of his best turkeys this year! We also had all the goods on the side: stuffing, potato salad, rolls, collard greens, corn, sweet potatoes, gravy (of course!!), cranberry sauce, and let's not forget dessert - which we had pumpkin pie, apple pie, and rice krispy treats!!! Everything was so good that I wish I had more room in my stomach! For the most part, that is all I have to report for Thanksgiving since I took no pictures. Everything is always low-key at my parents' house. When we go to my in-laws' house there is a lot more going on. Maybe next year we will go there (or go to both like normal).

Oh wait! I did forget that the boys went outside and started working on our garden after we got back. I don't how they did that cause I was completely ready for sleep, even though it was only 4pm. All they did was start digging up the ground. They dug out about 10 of these 1-foot squares of grass. Taylor told me that he was going to use it to make Tyler a "Lawn Chair". While, I thought he was joking, he really did make Tyler a LAWN chair. It was pretty funny. It even included an end table. :-) Very creative!
On to our PAJAMA STAYCATION!!!

We decided that today was going to be an absolute chill day. Originally, it was going to be all three of us but then the hubby decided that he had to work. :-( But we still decided to make the best of it. Last night we prepared EVERYTHING so that today we wouldn't have to make anything, wash anything, or make any effort other than for our simple enjoyment. So, last night, we cut up fruits and veggies, made sandwiches, made a pumpkin, and made some rice krispy treats. We made sure that we had enough food for us to last through the day.

So, we started the morning with mini muffins, lots of fruit (watermelon, cantaloupe, grapes, oranges), bagels, and some nature's valley trail mix bars.

At about 11:30ish, I started bringing out the sandwiches. We made tuna, PB & J, and just jelly. All the sandwiches were cut in to four squares. I don't have any pics of this because hubby had already left for work and I was using his cell phone to take the pictures (still camera-less).

Throughout the day, we spent the whole day hanging out. We played a couple of games of Yahtzee - I won once, and Tyler won once, we watched a movie (Disney's Tarzan), we did a couple of crafts, we started some Christmas decorating, and did LOTS of snacking!

We cut out and decorated some self-standing stars, using poster board, glitter and sticker stars. Tyler originally put puff balls on his star but then decided he didn't want them.

Later, we decorated our Christmas stockings. I don't know why we didn't do this year, but I guess that's a good thing because it gave us the opportunity to do it this year. We used glitter, foam stickers, and puff balls. Tyler and I decorated the hubby's stocking for him since he wasn't here (and he's not really that into doing artsy-craft type things).

After that, I started busting out some of the dessert-type snacks, like Chips Ahoy Chewy Chocolate Chip cookies, Rice Krispy Treats, Pumpkin pie.

I, of course, went straight for a Rice Krispy Treat!!

Amongst all this goodness, we managed to start putting up Christmas decorations, and we watched a movie, and just enjoyed each others' company. It was quite a much-needed, relaxing day. We should do this more often. We didn't have to once think of what to eat. We just snacked ALL day! It was the best way for us to spend BLACK FRIDAY!! Much better than crazy shopping. :-)

How did you all spend your Black Friday??

Tomorrow we are hoping to get in a couple hours up in Angelous Oaks to enjoy some of the great nature that we have out here while the weather is so nice out here. We're not sure if we are going to be able to do this cause hubby is planning on working a half-day, but that usually turns in to a whole day. Hopefully not this time.

I hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving and is enjoying the rest of their Thanksgiving weekend!!

Weekend Wrap Up

2009-11-23T21:48:00.001-08:00

I know that Friday really was not that long ago but it seems like it was so far away that I really have to think about what happened. So, as I sit here I remember that I did not work at all on Friday. It was kind of nice to not work but at the same time we certainly need the money. I pretty much spent the day at my son's school. There was an Awards Assembly. It took like 2 hours!! The sad part is that the folders that were supposed to hold the certificates for the kids in my son's class somehow got misplaced so they actually did not get the awards until just before lunch. So, we sat there for two hours for nothing!!! But then after the awards assembly, Tyler got to run in his first official race. Every year his school holds an annual Turkey Trot, which basically is about a quarter of a mile. Tyler actually got 8th place out of all the 4th grade boys!! He was so excited! I unfortunately have no picture cause I lost my camera (or it got stolen - a whole other story). But his teacher took a pic of him racing but he hasn't emailed it to me yet. :-( But I will sure to post it as soon as I get it. As far as Friday night is concerned, I honestly can not remember what we did on Friday night. Hmmm.... I must be getting old.

Saturday was a relax day. We slept in and wore our PJs for the first half of the day. Tyler and I watched an old movie, Ernest Saves Christmas, while eating our breakfast. If you have never seen it, it is one of those movies that are so stupid that it makes you actually laugh. It's very cheesy. Taylor, unfortunately, had to work all day on Saturday so we didn't get to hang out with him too much until the evening. Tyler and I pretty much just lounged around all day. He had some chores to do that hadn't been done earlier in the week and then it was just hang out time. We did some cuddling up (which loves to do - but won't admit in front of friends, of course), drawing, and he played with his LEGOS. When Taylor got home, the three of us all had dinner together. And again, I have to say that I don't remember what we had for dinner. It must not have been very exciting. Then after dinner we played some Scrabble while having hot chocolate. It was some good family time. Then after that we were all pretty tired so it was time for bed. :-)

Sunday morning, I got up and decided that I wanted some pancakes. I just used the Bisquick boxed stuff where you just add water. But then I added some cut up bananas and pecans. It was sooo good. We even sprinkled some extra pecans on top. On the side we had scrambled eggs and some good, crisp grapes. Mmm.... Pardon the not so great pics as I am still using a cell phone since my camera is MIA. :-(

For lunch I made some PB & J sandwiches. I made Tyler's look like a face. I joked that it was his face because I made the Cheez-Its look like his teeth. We always joke that Tyler really big teeth. Does that make us bad parents???

Let's compare pictures.... Don't you think the sandwich looks like my son??? :-) j/k. We joke about this all the time. It's a good thing that he thinks it's funny, too!
Much of the rest of the day was pretty drained because Tyler started having attitude problems so that kind of cut his day short. Blah!!!

And then there is today - Monday. It was pretty uneventful. I went to work for only about 2 hours, which was not that exciting. And I came home to Tyler have an attitude with Taylor. More blah!! And then in the afternoon, I had to coach our basketball team. I am only the assistant coach (which is nice, since I'm pregnant) but the head coach is out of town for Thanksgiving. :-) It has been interesting getting to know the girls. I never really thought that I would want to teach or coach high school students but this actually could be a lot of fun - if we get a full team soon. It's a very small school and so far we only have four girls. We shall see...

For now, I am tired. It's only 10pm and I feel like it's midnight. I guess that's what pregnancy does to you. :-)

Oh! I almost forgot to post the picture of me wearing the maternity outfit that my awesome friend, Beth, got me. It's interesting how just simply wearing a maternity outfit suddenly just makes you look more pregnant. :-)

Happy Monday!!!

Blessed!!

2009-11-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

This morning I was extremely blessed by one of my beautiful friends. Her name is Beth. She knows that recently I have been struggling with what clothes to wear due to the pregnancy and that I don't have a lot of money to be buying clothes. So, she showed up this morning with a wonderful gift for me. :-) She went out and bought me my first maternity outfit. I like it so much. I don't think the picture does it justice (since it was on a cell phone) but the outfit is right up my alley. She knows me so well!! I will be sure to take another pic when I wear it for the first time this weekend!!

Some darker blue jeans (with a stretchy belly) and a maroonish-red shirt - perfect colors for me :-)

What a wondeful treat to start my day with! She is so thoughtful.

Have a great Thursday everybody!!

'Tis Tuesday

2009-11-17T14:11:00.000-08:00

** Just so you all know I wrote this email on Tuesday but for some reason I did not post it... hence the title, "Tis Tuesday"**

I am amazed that it is already Tuesday... but at the same time, I also think "Is it only Tuesday??". I can't believe that I am actually going to be able to write another blog so soon. I hope this means that I will be getting back in the habit. I was going to write this post last night but I just was exhausted once the child was in bed. Blah! No excuse, right?!?!? :-)

I did want to share what he had for dinner last night. I thought it was quite good. Something simple that I have never tried before. And it was especially good, cause my son decided he wanted to help. He really likes helping me cook. Maybe in a few years, he will be doing all the cooking for us. :-) Anyhow, here's what he had:

- Chicken wings baked with poultry seasoning and A1 Sauce.
- Green beans
- Steamed rice
- Strawberries (which by the way were a great deal at the 99 cent store.)

I was going to add some pictures right here of the meal but for some reason I can not find the cord that connects the camera to the computer. I actually took pictures of our meal and now I can't show them.... I am so lame. Totally slacking. I guess that's what happens when you take an unintentional hiatus. :-)

And as for dinner tonight, I made turkey burgers, homemade french fries, and we had some more of those delish strawberries. We had to make sure to eat in a somewhat speedy way as I had to be at an athletics meeting at 6pm. We did pretty good. We started eating at 5:20 and still made it on time. :-)p

So this week, on Thursday, we will be having our first actual practice. It should be quite interesting as only 4 girls showed up to the meeting. We will actually mostly be doing conditioning which kinda bums me out that I'm pregnant cause I would much rather be doing the running with them. :-) Just what I need to get my weight down to my goal but now I can't think about that because I am actually supposed to be gaining wait now. Grrr...

Anyhow, I hope everyone has had a great Tuesday.

Some pics of our boy

2009-11-15T21:28:00.000-08:00

This is just going to be some pics of our boy and us. I don't really have much to report for the weekend. It was pretty much just spent enforcing consequences on our lovely child. He has a bit of a problem with the five-finger discount and we are trying to nip that in the bud early. It's really hard, though, cause he has been doing it for so long with his birth family. Anyhow, enough of that negativeness. Here are a few pics of us:

Our first family photo ever. July 2008

This is Tyler's first trip to a beach (and his first trip to San Diego). November 2008.

Tyler's first time up to Idyllwild for some hiking. March 2009

That will be all for now. I hope that everyone had a great weekend. As for me, it went by way too fast!

Opportunities Galore!!

2009-11-14T18:40:00.001-08:00

So, here I am... writing another post almost a month after the last one. What is up with that??? I really want to write more often but it just doesn't happen as it should. One thing that should make it easier is that I finally have my computer set up.... Woo Hoo!!! So, in my last post, I actually stated that I don't want to work at my job anymore. Well, recently, I have been directed towards two GREAT opportunities that are definitely more up my alley. They are:

1) I've been volunteering in my son's classroom a lot recently. It is a Special Day Class for ED kids. Well, the teacher's assistants (or paraprofessionals, as they like to call them) are being forced to take all their vacation time during school days this year, due to budget cuts, instead of cashing out on them at the end of the year. So, my son's teacher, asked me if I would just apply to be a substitute assistant because he knows that I have plenty of experience with behavior challenges. He basically said that I help out so much in the class already that I might as well get paid for it. I thought that was a great idea! And it will work perfect with when Tyler is in school.

2) My wonderful friend, Bobbi (who you may all know from N Her Shoes), told me about a great opportunity where she works. She told me that her hubby is going to be coaching the girls' basketball team and would need an assistant, and they both thought of me to do it. I wouldn't get paid much but I would get paid a little to do something that I really enjoy! There is a coach's meeting this week and I'm already excited and nervous!!

Both of these opportunities were presented to me this week and I couldn't believe it. God just works in amazing ways. I am definitely more inclined to work with the youth than to do a mindless job day in and day out. Now, don't get me wrong, the people that I work with and work for have been amazing but the actual job that I have to do everyday is not fulfilling in any way. So, those are my wonderful opportunities.

UPDATES:
My last post stated that two important dates were coming up for our family. The first one was the day I was supposed to find out if I was having a boy or a girl. Well, unfortunately, the technician said that the baby was not in a position where they could tell. I personally took that to mean that we are having girl but that is certainly UNOFFICIAL. So, as of this time, I still don't know. :-(

The second important date was for our court hearing with our son. We are very happy to report that the judge FINALLY terminated parental rights... it only took them 4 years after Tyler was pulled from their home... i just don't understand that. Anyhow, the birth mother was at the court hearing and she appealed - just as we expected. This is actually a good thing because now we can move towards just getting the appeal over with. The judge set another court date for Dec. 14th for the birth mother to present any evidence she may have as to why the courts should not terminate her rights. I can't believe that she still expects to get her son back after all this time of her not getting it together - and still not getting it together!! Anyhow, we are moving a step in the right direction. Now all we can do is wait right now. But if any of you remember on December 14th, we can certainly use your prayers.

I wanted to close this post with some pics of us with Tyler but they were taking FOREVER to download so hopefully I will be able to post those tomorrow. I do apologize for the lack of photos. However, if you are interested, you can see the short video from the day that we told Tyler that we were going to be his parents. Click here if you are interested.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!! :-)

Kreativ Blogger

2009-10-22T20:07:00.001-07:00

Just today I was ready my beautiful friend, Bobbi's, blog over at N Her Shoes. She was given the Kreativ Blogger Award and then Bobbi so graciously awarded it to me. So, with that award comes the responsibility of sharing 7 things about myself that almost nobody else knows about. And then I award this to someone else who will share 7 things about themselves. I am honored that Bobbi would think of me but I certainly don't think that I am a creative blogger by any means, but I kind of think she was graciously trying to give me more exposure as I try to re-enter the wonderful blog world. So, here we go....

7 Things That Nobody Knows About Me:

1. If I could, I would adopt many, many children.

2. Babies seriously scare me. I hate not knowing what they need when they cry.

3. I often wish that I could be an actress on a family-friendly television show.

4. I prefer not to have cheese on anything but LOVE it on pizza! (But will still eat food with cheese when I am guest in someone's home).

5. I was in choir in high school but I really can't sing.

6. I want to learn how to ballroom dance.

7. I don't want to work at my job anymore. People are really nice but job is not rewarding or fulfilling in any way.

Now, 3 Bloggers to give the award to:

1. Kamran at The Sophisticated Gourmet

2. Lacey at Common Objects and Everyday Events

3. ALL OF YOU!! (Totally taking Bobbi's idea cause you are ALL creative and I would love to see all of your answers)

So, that was the Kreativ Blogger Award. Again, I will say that I am honored that Bobbi would choose me. I gotta get back in the habit of writing. At least this time it only took me a little over a week (thanks Bobbi!!). We still haven't hooked up my computer but that will change things a lot when that happens. But if I don't write this weekend, I will definitely be posting next week for sure. We have two big events coming up next week:

1. October 27th - I will have my sonogram where I find out if we are having a boy or a girl. I can't wait to find out!!

2. October 28th - This is our next court date in the adoption process with our son, Tyler. This court date should terminate the birth families parental rights for good. Once that happens, the birth parents have the right to appeal, which they probably will. We have to wait 60 days just to see if they appeal. So, we are ready for the next phase but after that it is just a waiting game for us. So, if you remember, please do keep us in your prayers.

Anyone have any big plans for this weekend??

Have a Great Night Everyone!!

Finally...

2009-10-13T06:54:00.000-07:00

I am writing another post. It took me about another month and a half but I am here at last. It has been really hard for me to blog because since we moved, we haven't set up my computer so I have had to use my husband's computer. I haven't realized how inconvenient that is - especially when he is home. But this week we are setting up my computer so hopefully I will be able to get more posts in on a regular basis - instead of once every one to two months. So, let me see if I can catch you up on what's been going on. Really, right now, there are two big things that I want to share with you all.

First, I will start with MY NEW (USED ) CAR!!! Just about a month ago, we finally got a car to replace our van that was out of commission. I love my new car. It is a 2000 Toyota Camry. I haven't taken any pictures of it yet but I will try to post some tomorrow (for real this time). I don't know if any of you read my other blog, The Three T's but a little over a year ago I posted a picture of my old Camry completely crushed under a tree branch that fell on top of it. If you would like to see it, feel free to check it out. The post with this picture is kind of a long post because I recapped my whole month of August of last year. That was a busy month for us. But feel free to check it all as it gives a little glimpse of me and my family.

So, now on to the BIG NEWS.... As of this coming Thursday, I will be EIGHTEEN WEEKS PREGNANT!! For the last couple of posts, I was constantly posting about how tired I was all the time... Well, this is why! :-) My due date has changed from March 27th to March 18th to March 22nd. So, I'm guessing some time in March :-). I got some sonograms at a Free Clinic in San Bernardino that I am happy to post. I apologize if they are hard to see. Sometimes sonogram pics are hard to see the baby anyways but these pictures were in and out of my pocket for a couple of days before I scanned them. These pictures were taken at about 13 weeks.

I like this one the best because looks like he/she is sitting ready for the world. :-)

In this one the baby appears to be laying down. I think it's harder to see the baby in this picture.

Well, finally after a month and a half I have finally told you all the big news that I wanted to tell you (if there is anyone left still reading).

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week and feeling blessed!!

Where Have I Been????

2009-08-31T19:52:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that I went from M.I.A. to falling off the face of the planet!! So many things have happened since my last post that I don't even know where to start. For one, our family van totally broke down and is out of commission. We have not had it for about two months so we have been relying on other people to get all over the place. Ugh!! But tomorrow we are getting our replacement vehicle so I can hardly wait!!

My son finally started school. It seems like it took forever for the first day of school to come, but I was so excited when it finally got here.

I guess it hasn't been too big of a deal that I haven't been blogging recently because I haven't really been making any great meals throughout this summer. It has just been way too HOT!! Every Saturday we have a barbecue and cook lots of extras so we can have leftovers for a few days. Then everything else we eat is frozen foods or sandwiches. Pretty lame, huh?

I do have more news that I will be looking forward to sharing but that will have to wait until my next post!! Right now I am going to try to get caught up on what's been going on with all of you!!

Happy Monday!!

M.I.A.!!!

2009-07-09T21:59:00.000-07:00

Wow!! I can't believe that it has been over two weeks that I have been Missing In Action (MIA)!!! It seems like it went by so fast! The last time I wrote I talked about my son leaving for camp. Well, he came back so fast. It was amazing how tired I felt while he was gone. I thought that I would do so much while he was gone but as soon as I had the time, I just felt exhausted. I guess I didn't realize how tired I was until I actually had a moment to rest. And before I knew it, I was already picking my son up from camp. That week flew by in the blink of an eye. I did manage to get some time in to do stuff that I don't always get to do. On that Monday night, I went out to dinner and a movie with my wonderful friend, Beth. We went to Rubio's and chatted it up, grabbed a Mocha Frappucino from Starbuck's, and then headed off to the movies. We went to see The Proposal which was REALLY funny. Also, during the week that my son was at camp, my husband and I managed to find some to go eat at Pick up Stix and get some Frozen Yogurt at TCBY and were just able to relax... a little. Before we knew it, Tyler was back and we had to get back in the groove of things. Don't get me wrong... I absolutely love my son, but it was really nice to have a break.

I would love to recap you on all that has been going on since I last wrote but in all honesty it seems like such a blur. There have been barbecues, fireworks, swimming, meetings with social workers (blah!!), work, and so many other random things (some fun and some not). So, at this point I am hoping that I can do some major catching up on all of your blogs and perhaps gets some regular posts started up again. I will have to post some random pics up in one of my next blogs so that you can get a little dose of what I've been up to but as of right now, I want to catch up on what you have all been up to. And hopefully, you all haven't given up on reading my blog! :-)

Camp and A Wonderful Treat

2009-06-30T18:56:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday morning I dropped my son off to go tocamp. He was so excited! He has never been to camp before and he has never stayed overnight anywhere without us since he has moved in with us (about a year ago). As soon as I woke him up, he bounced out of bed with a huge smile (which has never happened before) so you know he was excited. Here's a pic of him with his sleeping bag as we were loading up the van. He could not stop smiling and saying "thank you for letting me to go camp."

Once at the meeting location, it did not take him long to make a friend. In front of us in line was a boy that Tyler instantly bonded with. They were like two peas in a pod. And they were instantly asking the camp staff in they could be in the same cabin together. And when they got on the bus they just had to sit together. Here are the buddies together on the bus.
We were pretty excited about camp, too, because we needed a break. Tyler is a great kid but he really can wear on a person. He's much better than he was but in the beginning he had us crying out to God daily. It's amazing to see his transformation (and ours). I definitely miss Tyler but it is nice to be able to relax. :-)

A Wonderful Treat

So, when I went to go check my mail today, I was delighted to see that I had a nice package. Recently I entered a give away for some Trader Joe's goodies over at Faith In Food. And to my surprise, I actually won. I was wondering when I would receive the package and today was my lucky day. I was so excited! Here's all the goods:

In the package was:
- Perk Up Your Trek Mix
- Gluten Free Granola
- Sun Butter
- Thai Style Lime Pilaf
- Island Soyaki
- Pasta
- Dried Fruit Bars
- A handy-dandy Trader Joe's tote bag
- And a really sweet note that made my day!!!

So, I'm going to get going on a high note. I gotta get some rest. Have a wonderful night everyone!

Weekend Wrap-up... Finally :-)

2009-06-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

I hope that everyone's weekend was absolutely wonderful! As I was glancing over everyone's blogs, it looks there were some good times being had. I will definitely have to really sit down and catch up on what's been going on with everyone. My weekend was pretty jam-packed. I will have to figure out how to get some rest from my weekend. But hopefully that won't be too much of a problem since my son will be at camp all this week until Friday afternoon. So, on with my weekend wrap-up! (finally)

FAMILY FUN FRIDAY

This week we actually decided to do Family Fun Friday outside of the home. Usually we rent a movie and order a Little Caesar's Pizza but this week we decided to splurge a little bit. We decided to go get a Costco Pizza (which I absolutely love) and then go to the drive-in. i really love the drive in because it is WAY cheaper than going to the movie theater and you get to see movies. So, we went and saw UP and NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2. All three of us enjoyed both movies. I personally enjoyed UP the most. It was absolutely great!!

After the movies were over, we headed home pretty late. We were pretty tired afterwards. And I was definitely ready to go to sleep.

SATURDAY WEDDING

After we slept in a little bit we got ready to head out to a wedding in San Diego of some very dear friends of ours, Jon and Emily. It was such a beautiful wedding and they absolutely deserve it!! These are two down-to-earth, God-serving, generous people. They had the most God-centered wedding/reception that I have ever been to and that was AWESOME!! I love these two dearly. In addition, they have also stepped up and said that if anything were to ever happen to us, that they would take care of our son. That is amazing!! They had their wedding on the Sunset Cliffs in San Diego. It was perfect weather and a perfect view! Here are the some pics of the wedding. I didn't get too many cause we didn't get a good seat up front (since we were trying to save some seats for some friends that were late). But here's what I did get.

The view is beautiful!

The handsome groom - Jonathan
The absolutely beautiful bride - Emily (with her father)
Husband and Wife - Mr. & Mrs. Jon & Emily Shum!!!!

We also took advantage of the fact that we were all dressed up and on the beautiful Sunset Cliffs. So, we got some nice family pics.

The Fam :-)

Me and the Hubby

Father and Son - Two Good-Lookin' Fellows if I do say so myself! :-)

After the wedding, we headed over to the reception at a Chinese Restaurant. I think it was called the Emerald Kitchen (but don't quote me on that). But they had a great amount of food. I didn't pictures of everything as my camera batteries were starting to die.:-( Here's what we had to feast on.

Here's the menu. Basically, it was like a round robin. Everything on the menu was brought to your table at different times and you got to try everything. It was pretty cool.The Shrimp which I think was my favorite
The Vegetarian Dish (which I surprisingly liked more than some of the other stuff)

The duck
The head of the chicken was on the plate!! Crazy! And Tyler's reaction to seeing it! :-)

Almost everything else. As we got closer to the end, we were pretty full. But in this pic is we have fried rice on the top, in the back is the flounder and the vegatarian dish. Up front is the chickena and the lobster toward the front right.

And finally here's a pic of our family with the newly joined family. We love them!!Congratulations Jon & Emily!!

SUNDAY SABBATH

On Sunday morning we woke up really late since we didn't get home until probably one in the morning. So, because of that we went to the 11:00 am service at church (which we were late to). After church we all went home and crashed. We were all so tired that we pretty much slept through the afternoon. When we got up, we started packing Tyler up some stuff for camp. He was getting so excited. After we got his stuff packed, we headed over to my parents's house to eat dinner. My parents ordered Kentucky Fried Chicken (no pics, sorry... but it's just KFC). IT was great cause my bros were there, too, who I don't really get to see too often. It was great catching up with them and relaxing. A great way to end the weekend!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Mine was great but exhausting!! I still have to update on yesterday, too. Will do that this evening. Have a great day everyone!!

Last Day Of School + Pool Play Date + Hubby's Birthday

2009-06-27T08:03:00.000-07:00

** NOTE: Hello wonderful bloggers! This week has been so exhausting for me. I can't even believe it. I do want to apologize. I actually typed up this post yesterday but didn't have time to download the pictures. So, today (6/28) I am uploading the pictures but I'm not changing any of the text. So, some of the things that says that I am going to do may have already been done. But I will write a weekend wrap up either tonight or tomorrow as well. Sorry for the bad blogging. I am amazing by those of you who do it everyday and especially those who do it twice a day!**

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL

Wednesday was my son't last day of school. In honor of it, I made some marble cupcakes with chocolate frosting. The kids devoured them.When I went to pick up Tyler (showed up a little early) they were watching The Sandlot. I wish I would have showed up even earlier cause I love that movie! I even remembered to bring my camera. I asked Tyler if he wanted to take any pictures with his teacher or staff members and he said yes (while almost crying). This was such a big year for him and he got his best report kid ever since he started school. And he didn't get suspended once this WHOLE year!!! (He used to get suspended at least once every other week before he moved in with us.) Tyler was kind of sad that he may not see his teacher anymore. He's going to have a different teacher and a different school next year. Here's a pic of him and his teacher.
And then we were walking to the van, Tyler was almost crying. But that didn't last long because of what was planned for after school...

SWIMMING!!

After school I had planned a swimming play date with one of the girls from our soccer team. So, right after school, I took Tyler over there and they went swimming and had some hot dogs, chips, strawberries, and some ice cream. No pics of any of the food. Don't really know why I didn't take any. But did get some pics of the kids playing. One of the girls was on Tyler's soccer team and our families totally bonded. It's great because Tyler actually has a real friend - and it's one that he can see during the summer.That was a pretty tiring day. I was out in the sun for a long time and didn't think to drink any water. BIG mistake. When I got home I knew I was dehydrated. I was extremely tired. But it was worth it. The kids had a great time!

HUBBY'S BIRTHDAY

Thursday was hubby's birthday. We had a BBQ (just hot dogs and hamburgers) which was a lot of fun. Taylor really enjoyed fellowshipping with everyone. Tyler made him a pretty cool birthday card. And then Tyler made a gift together. For some reason I had not picture of the spread (sorry). But we had plenty of fruit, chips, cheez-its, jelly bellies, and the hot dogs and hamburgers. The jelly bellies were the first things to disappear. Here are the other pics of the party.

Taylor's Birthday cake. Stater Bros (grocery store) marble cake with chocolate frosting. It was SO good!!
Everyone chatting it up. Friends and Family!
Some good hockey games... Grandma v. Grandson
Me and the hubby at the end of the party. As you can see, he came straight from work. :-)

So, that catches you up for most ot the days. Yesterday we did Family Fun Friday but I will have to write about that later when I wrap up the weekend because I don't want to make the post too long.

But here are the plans for the rest of the weekend:

- Cut boys' hair
- Buy a wedding gift
- Leave to San Diego by 12:30 (1:00 at the absolute latest!!!) today
- Wedding in San Diego tonight
- Church tomorrow morning
- Hopefully somewhere in there is rest
- Get Tyler packed for camp
- Blog
- Clean

So, I am off to get started! I hope you are all having a great weekend!

Beginning Yoga

2009-06-23T21:33:00.000-07:00

So, a quick little post... Last week I tried yoga download. I've seen so many people in the blog world talking about so I thought that would be the perfect way for me to start out in some yoga. Well, it's certainly a stretch for me. But this week I have already done yoga three times! One time my son, Tyler, even joined me in some yoga. He's 9 years old. He told me that since it was the end of the school year, his teacher was doing a lot of random things and yoga was one of them. So, he was really excited to join me. Here's a picture of me and my boy doing the Tree. HE's pretty good! He got his leg up way higher than me. :-)
Just wanted to share that really quick before I went to bed. I could probably get in to yoga and that could be something else that my son and I do together.

Have a great night!

MISSIONARIES

2009-06-23T07:29:00.000-07:00

I promised to write a post about missionaries almost a week ago and now it is finally here. One reader asked me this question:

"how do missionaries survive financially? where do they live? i am curious about the logistics! i always want to simplify my life and live with less and just clean out everything. i just don't know where to start!"

So, now I am finally answering her question. Sorry it took so long! I will answer in three parts to the best of my ability. I have never been labeled a missionary but so many of my friends have been but in all actuality a Christian should be a missionary where ever they are. So, here it goes:

1. How do missionaries survive financially? Well, there are so many ways that missionaries survive. The most common is financial support. They either get financially supported through an organization or they are supported by their church family or they are supported by Christiaan brothers and sisters that feel God leading them to give money. Some missionaries find work in the country that they live in and financially survive that way. Also, as a missionary in another country, it is usually easier to spend less money, because most places where you would go as a missionary, the people all around you have a lot less.

2. Where do they live? Missionaries live everywhere. There are missionaries in almost every country in the world. If it is short-term, many missionaries either stay in a hotel or with another missionary that has a long-term home there. If you go through an organization, usually they set up housing for you so that makes it a little easier. If you go on your own, then you have to find a place.

3. Simplify your life - Where to start? There are so many places to start but usually the easiest is with clothes. Most people in America have WAY more clothes than they need (including myself). I usually where the same clothes over and over. And then there's that sectionof clothes that I only wear once in and a while. Well, those clothes could easily be donated or given away. What we have done in our home, is put extra clothes in the back of our mini-van and we give them to homeless people that may need some. (FYI: Not all homeless people need that. Some have quite a stash of stuff). After that, it is usually a personal preference. We definitely could get rid of a lot more stuff. There are a lot of movies that we don't watch all the time that we could easily sell. We are also trying to budget our food. We have really been taking advantage of the 99 cent only store out here. You definitely can't get everything there, but it helps. But I would definitely start with the clothes. From there, it's up to you on how much and fast you simplify everything else.

So, I hope that was helpful. I know, just writing it made me think that I should continue to simplify my life and our home.

So, it's about time for me to head off to work but before I do...

I wanted to let you all know about a couple more GIVE AWAYS that are going on in the blog world!

Bobbi at N Her Shoes is giving away the Amazing Grass Best of Both Combo. Check it out!
Heather at Hangry Pants is giving away Musselman's Healthy Picks Apple Sauce. Check it out!

Have a great day everyone!

A GREAT WEEKEND

2009-06-22T07:52:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!!
I hope that everyone had a wonderful Father's Day weekend. We did. It was the first one in our home. But let's back up to the rest of the weekend first.

SATURDAY

We started off Saturday morning with the enjoyment of sleeping in!! I have not slept in on a Saturday morning in such a long time. Last Saturday was supposed to be the first Saturday to sleep in but I couldn't resist the opportunity to go on a hike with my friend, Bobbi. I was tired but it was totally worth it.

But after we finally got up, we made our Saturday productive. We made ten bags of lunch (which included PB & J sandwich, grapes, banana, granola bar, bottle of water, and a capri sun) which all had two Bible verses (one inside and one stapled outside) and went to a park and handed them out to homelsss people. The Bible verses that were:

Inside the bag:
If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
For with the heart a person belives, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
Romans 10:9-10

Stapled on the outside of the bag:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:16

Our son was so excited about doing this. He's 9 years old and he expresses often that he wants to be a missionary and even though that sometimes scares me (due to some persecution that missionaries encounter in other countries) we also want to feed that desire in his heart.

We were out for a couple of hours prayer walking, handing out lunches, and praying directly with some of the people. Afterwards we were pretty exhausted. So, we went back home, ate lunch, and rested until we went to a game night with some friends. It was good times. Every game they did men vs. women and they get pretty competitive. They had plenty of food there (but we actually had already eaten).

Now, this about the time when I would normally insert pictures of the evening but I was lame and forgot my camera. We tried to take pictures on our phone but they just turned out blurry.... Bummer.

But it was a great night and I got to see one of my really good friends for the first time in a few months. She's going to school to be a pharmacist and she just finished a really rough quarter. So, now she can hang out now. Woo hoo!!

FATHER'S DAY!! (SUNDAY)

We started off the day by me and my son Tyler getting up early to clean up the house a little bit and make breakfast for dad (Taylor). We put our gifts on the table. right next to where he sits at the table. Here's what we got him together for Father's Day:

Carrot seeds, an Herb Grow Kit, Watermelon Seeds, Tomato Grow Kit, Strawberry Grow Kit, and a vegetable starter garden- which had seeds for squash, garden beans (green beans), lettuce, and cucumbers. He was really excited about this because we have been wanting to start a garden
For Taylor's breakfast we made him a hot dog omelette covered with shredded cheese. And then we used salsa to spell "DAD" on it. In addition we made biscuits and had grapes on the side.

Then we rushed to church. I really love my church. The pastor speaks the truth straight from the Bible. After church we had lunch with the in-laws as we almost always do. We went to Panera which I really love. A lot of the kids came out today (since it was Father's Day) to church and lunch with us. There were seven of the sibling-in-laws at lunch with us including my husband (there are 12 total). It was nice.

After lunch with the in-laws, we treated my parents to bowling for Father's Day. My parents are really good at bowling. I was always surprised that they never did it professionally. It was good times with my parents. My bros were supposed to come but they kind of flaked out. And then I don't know how it started but whenever someone did really good, Tyler and I would say "WOOOOOOOOW" Tyler wanted me to video him doing it just so you all could see it. :-)

And here's a pic with me and my parents before we left the bowling alley. My parents are awesome!!
Then after bowling, we had about an hour to rest before heading over to the in-laws for the Father's Day dinner at their house. They have pasta every Sunday at their house so we still had that but then afterwards my father-in-law opened his cards. This is always tough because his birthday was last Sunday and now it's Father's Day. And now that we celebrate Father's Day in our home, it's going to be even tougher because my hubby's birthday is also going to be this Thursday! What a busy month!

After we left the in-laws we pretty much went home. And then from there I was pretty much ready to go to sleep. I was pretty tired. Going in to the weekend it didn't seem like we had that much stuff planned but now I feel like we didn't have a moment to rest. Oh well. It was good times!

I hope everyone else had an awesome weekend!! Now to start the week!

A Woman After God's Own Heart

2009-06-17T06:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wrote that I had been reading "Is There A Moose In Your Marriage?" but I don't think that I mentioned that I had finished it and that's why my friend, Sandi, and I were talking about it on Monday. I just want to touch on it a little bit and then move on to the new book that I am reading.

IS THERE A MOOSE IN YOUR MARRIAGE

This book has been such a great challenge in prioritizing my life. It's about the little road blocks that we sometimes have in our marriages that we LET stay in our way. I think that I have been very selfish in my marriage and I have not been fulfilling the role that God had intended in my marriage. I was called to be a servent - not just in my marriage but in life. The role of the wife is to be her husband's helper. This book really makes me see that how I treat my husband is how I treat my Lord, Jesus. And I just wanted to challenge any of you to pick up this book. I'm not at all saying that you have problems in your marriage (because I don't have problems). But this book will challenge you to do things to help your marriage get better. I don't know how many of you are believers out there but I absolutely LOVE that the book centers your marriage on Christ. If you are a believer, this is a great read.

A WOMAN AFTER GOD'S OWN HEART

This is the book that I just started reading yesterday.You are probably thinking... What's up with all the books??? Well, this is part of the spiritual journey that I am also going on. I want to really draw closer to God and improve my prayer life and live my life for God. All the books that I am reading right now have to do with prioritizing God in my life. I'm trying to read these books at night and I'm trying to read my Bible every morning.

So, I just finisihed the first chapter of this book and it looks pretty good already. This will be another book that gives me a heart check. Where are my priorities? Whom do I serve? Who on earth are the most important people in my life? How do I make sure God is involved in every area of my life? Etc, etc, etc. Can't wait to dig in even more.

ANOTHER GIVE AWAY!!

Wow, here is another give away! It seems like people have these things going on all the time. But I guess that's pretty cool since we all love free stuff. :-)

Faith In Food is giving away a TRADER JOE'S GOODIE BAG!! Check it out!

Question of the Day: How and when do you decide to do a give away? I've been wanting to do a give away on my site but I really don't know exactly how to go about doing it. Do companies sponsor your give aways or do you just go out and buy the stuff? Would love to hear your input!

HAVE A GREAT WEDNESDAY!!

2 out of 3

2009-06-16T20:35:00.000-07:00

MEETING #1

Yesterday I met with one of the three friends that I am seeing this week that I haven’t seen in a long time. Her name is Sandi. She was so gracious as to invite me over for breakfast so that we could have some wonderful fellowship. She made me breakfast and we talked about this book that I’ve been reading.

This book has really challenged me to be a better wife and a better servant of God. I would not say that I am quite there yet but is quite the challenge – especially since I am so SELFISH. This book opens your eyes to what God’s description of the wife’s role is in a marriage. It really changes your perspective. I was constantly reminded that I need to my duties as a wife, regardless of what my husband is doing (not that he’s doing anything majorly wrong) because I will be accountable to God for my obedience regardless of what anybody else is doing. I thought this book was great. I borrowed it from Sandi but I think I will have to add it to my library.

So, Sandi made me a wonderful breakfast. She made a breakfast quiche with eggs and ham and all kinds of good stuff. She also made fruit salad with blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries – all from her backyard! The breakfast was very delicious. I took pictures of everything in the preparation pans. I was going to get a picture of my plate so you could the goods in the quiche but I know that Sandi thought it was a little weird that I was taking pictures. But she knew why I was doing it. J Here’s the food:

Sandi and I had a great time of fellowship, catching up on each other’s lives and sharing how God is working on us. She has committed to us doing one on one discipleship. I fully believe that she is woman sincerely seeking to be obedient to God – in her marriage, in her family, in her ministries, and in her life. I have been truly blessed to know her. She has great wisdom to share. Thank you Sandi for taking the time to share it with me!!

MEETING #2

Today I got to meet with my other dear friend, Heather, at her home. She recently had her third child so I had no problem going over to her home. Her three children are great kids but they are definitely a handful. In addition to her own 3 kids, she also babysitting her nephew. This boy is quite the character. He was very unhappy when his mommy left but he eventually warmed up to hanging out with us. And once he calmed down, he was SO adorable. Unfortunately, I took ZERO pictures while I was there even though I had plenty of opportunities. Heather and I just had a great opportunity to fellowship and catch up on each other's lives. It was much needed to time since it has been so long. We will need to plan more days, especially when my son is out of school so that the kids can all play together.

So, tomorrow, I meet with my next friend for the week. Her name is Grace, and she has been my best friend for ten plus years! She was the first person to invite me to church (Thank you God!!) and she always challenges me to simplify my life and have more of a servent's heart just as God intended. I can not wait to see her tomorrow. Although, I know I need to get lots of rest tonight because I know we are probably going to have a LATE night tomorrow night.I'm so excited! In addition, after meeting with my friend, Grace, I will be even better able to answer a question that was asked of me about missionaries in one of my previous posts. I know but Grace has actually lived out on the mission field so she knows even more about it than I do. So, look for the missionary post probably on Thursday night!

Have a great night everyone!

Weekend Wrap Up

2009-06-15T06:46:00.000-07:00

I just want to apologize for always waiting until Monday to wrap up my weekend. I keep thinking that shorter posts are the smarter way to go but since we moved, my hubby and I have been sharing one computer and that has NOT been fun. I didn't realize how inconvenient it would be to only have one for awhile. So, I'm in the process of figuring out a new plan.

So, I will try to keep this as short as possible which shouldn't be too hard since I didn't do too much this weekend. So, here we go...

SOCCER AWARDS NIGHT
On Fridday night we had the end of the season awards night. This OFFICIALLY means my soccer season is over. :-( Actually, I'm kind of happy and sad about (if that's not weird). It is quite the commitment but it also was a lot of fun.

The awards show was great. They had a guest magician come and entertain the kids and parents. He was hilarious. He did nice tricks and interweaved throughout his show was the gospel message. I absolutely loved that. The kids (and parents) were entertained and they all heard about Jesus.

It was a great night. I wasn't allowed to do any video taping which is a bummer but I did get some pics of my kids and stuff. Unfortunately, one player did not make it to the show, so I STILL have not gotten a picture of my whole team. So sad but enjoy the pics.

The kids chatting up before the show started. I took pictures during the show but they were watching the magician so intently that it looks like they are zoning out on the TV.

Then the magician asked some coaches to come up. He just called out 3 names (boy was I relieved that one of the names wasn't mine! He had up there doing some funny stuff.

And this is my final team picture (minus one player, Joel). This a good group of kids!

So, that officially wraps up our soccer season. Basketball sesason will start in August/September and I have not decided yet if I will coach for that. I think I might just enjoy being a team parent. We shall see...

SATURDAY MORNING HIKE

My friend, Bobbi, invited for a hike with some ladies from her work. We went up to Mt. Rubidouz in Riverside. It was about 20 minutes away from where we live (could be an hour or longer drive when there's traffic) so that was nice. Bobbi picked me up at 6:30am. I don't know what I was thinking because one thing that I was really excited about since soccer was over, was that I would I finally be able to sleep in on Saturdays. I guess I will have to wait until next Saturday. But it was worth it. I really enjoyed the hike and I enjoyed meeting Bobbi's co-workers.

This is what we saw when we got to the top of the hike. I thought that was so cool. We should have planned to do a little devotion. Maybe next time... right Bobbi?? :-)
We were all going to bring something for breakfast to share with everyone. Three of us brought things and we all brought strawberries. I was the only one who only brought strawberries. Bobbi brought strawberries and blueberries. And Sandi brought strawberries and grapes. It is definitely the perfect time to buy strawberries here.

Here's my little serving of fruit. And then after that I kept going back for grapes.

Here's a pic of me and Bobbi. You're probably wondering while we look all bundled up. Believe it or not, it actually sprinkled a little that morning and was still a little chilly... Perfect hiking weather!

So, for the most part that wraps up my weekend. For the rest of Saturday, we pretty much did nothing but relax which is exactly what I wanted to do. It was nice. Sunday we went to church in the morning, and then did more relaxing. It was great.

I'm pretty excited about this week because I'm going to be meeting up with three beautiful ladies that I have not seen in a long time. I'm so excited. All three ladies have impacted my life at different times and they are beautiful women of God. I'm meeting with this morning, one tomorrow morning, and one Wednesday night. I will post about each lady at some point after meeting with them. So, I should probably get off the computer since I'm meeting with the first beautiful lady in less than an hour. Have a great Monday everybody!

Small Victory + Family Restaurant + The New Challenge

2009-06-12T07:23:00.000-07:00

Wow! That seems like a lot to get in on one post but I will try to keep it brief because I'm sure short and sweet would be best.

SMALL VICTORY

I would like to start off this post writing about our family's small victory. We are currently going through the adoption process and his been so ridiculous. Our son, Tyler, is 9 years old and he certainly has his issues (well, of course, after what he's been through)but he does NOT need any medication. For those people that have met him, they see that he doesn't need medication. Unfortunatly, the County social worker felt that Tyler should be re-evaluated after he a really bad month behaviorally. One month out of ten is not bad in my opinion since it use to be a weekly (sometimes daily occurence where he use to live). Anyhow, after 3 visits to the psychiatrist, he determined yesterday that Tyler does NOT need meds!! We were extremely excited. Tyler almost jumped out of his seat. He was almost shocked that anyone else besides us would think he doesn't need meds because they have been saying he needs them for so long. So, this is one small (actually pretty huge to us) for us and we have about a ton more to go. Here's a picture of me and Tyler while we were in the waiting room waiting for our official paper saying that there is no need for medication.
FAMILY RESTAURANT

In honor of this small victory (along with some other changes we made in the household in regards Tyler) we decided to go out to eat. We went to a place that we have never been before. We drive by all the time, wondering if it is any good. Well, last night we decided to find out. It is called Redlands Family Restaurant. It was very quiet and relaxing which I loved cause we could just enjoy each other's company. The prices were pretty reasonable and we got plenty of food. Here's what we ordered:

First, we started out with a sampler platter ($8.99) which had chicken strips, buffalo wings, mozarella sticks, and onion rings. (There were also some veggies for an added to touch but they were advertised on the menu). And everything on the platter was really good and there was so much that there were leftovers.
Tyler order the kids' grilled cheese ($4.99). It was a pretty good-sized sandwich and came with fries and some veggies (which Tyler did eat). Sorry the pic is blurry.
Taylor went with that hamburger meal ($7.99) which was also huge. And it came with all the fixings and fries.
I ordered the chicken parmesian ($8.99). There was a picture of it in the menu and I couldn't resist. However, it didn't look like the picture. There was WAY more pasta and chicken. The chicken is all under the pasta so you can't really tell. The chicken wasn't what I expected for chicken parmesian but it was still good. But since we had so much food, I just decided to eat the pasta and save the chicken so I can make a sandwich out of it for lunch today. And the chicken parmesian came with soup or salad (and I picked the soup which was Navy Bean). It was pretty good soup. And there was also garlic bread which I somehow didn't take a picture of. Hmm...

Overall, I would say that we really enjoyed our meals and would go there again. However, even the prices were decent, it is still high priced for our budget so we wouldn't go there often. We actually don't eat out too often anymore cause it costs so much more when you have a child.

THE NEW CHALLENGE

So, here it finally is, my new challenge that I accepted from my friend, Bobbi. Actually it's more like 3 challenges. It's a challenge to do 100 push ups, 200 sit ups, and 200 squats. Each of these are actually three different 6-week programs to set you to reach the goals of doing 100 consecutive push ups, 200 consecutive sit ups, and 200 consecutive squats. Each of these programs can be done individually but we have decided to do them together. You take the initial test so that you can see where you start in the program. When preparing to do the initial tests I was not at all worried about sit ups or squats. I can do enough of those to not be embarressed when I post the results. However, when it comes to push ups, I'm so bad at them. My arms are pretty strong but I'm also pretty heavy so I've always struggled with push ups and usually just avoided them. But not now... I'm going to work at getting better at those. So, for the test you just start doing as many as you can in a row until you have to stop. And based on that number, it is determine where you should start in the program. Well, here are my results from my test:

Push Ups (I can't believe I'm sharing this) : 12
Sit ups: 133
Squats: 77

So, based on these numbers, I know where I start in the challenge. Please feel free to check out these sites and feel free to join us in the challenge. Join us in one, two, or all three challenges!!

100 Push Ups Challenge
200 Sit Ups Challenge
200 Squats Challenge

Wow, I can't believe it's Friday! The week has gone by pretty quickly which is good (and bad). But there are some wonderful things that I'm looking forward to this weekend. Here's the plan for the weekend:

Tonight - Soccer Awards Night
Saturday - Hike with Bobbi, wait for guy to install DirecTV (blah), and have some family time
Sunday - Church in the morning, lunch with the in-laws, more family time (possibly go out to Joshua Tree or Idyllwild since it has been cool enough still), and then come back for my in-law's birthday dinner.

Lots of things to do before I go to work. Have a great Friday everyone!!

On the way to the doctor's office & Giveaways in the blog world

2009-06-10T19:01:00.000-07:00

I was taking my son to the doctor today, we saw this dog just hanging out of the window. I know is so random but I just wanted to post it because the dog looked so relaxed. I do apologize for the extremely blurry picture as I took the picture with my crummy camera phone through our dirty car window while driving. But the dog was still cute and relaxed. Hope you can see him clear enough.

GIVE AWAYS

Some give aways that I have already mentioned:

Peanut Butter & Jenny has the HUGE GOODIE PRIZE - Ends June 14 @ midnight EST
The Health Nut is giving away the MyMix Granola - Ends TONIGHT @ midnight EST

More give aways that I have recently stumbled across:

Rosey Rebecca is giving away a Variety Pack of Chobani Yogurt - Ends June 12 @ midnight EST

Later I will post about a challenge that I took from my friend, Bobbi. She challenged me to a duel!!! j/k. It's an exercise challenge that I would like to write about later and it's actually pretty simple. In addition, I will post the meal that fed three of us for a total of $4.00! (Yes... we are definitely living on a budget!)

Hope everyone had a wonderful hump day!

A Dose of Reality

2009-06-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

Today after Tyler's therapy, I went over to one of my soccer player's house. Her mom told me that she would make me a CD of all the pictures that she took for the season. This is perfect because I like to make a slideshow DVD for my players and I know that I didn't take nearly enough pictures on my own. So, anyways, I was thinking that this would be a quick stop by just to get the CD but then it turned in to a 3 hour conversation!! I was blessed to meet this family. The player's house that I went to was Lyric. Her parents names are Josh and Sara. And then there are 3 other children!!!: Ireland, Kennedy, and Liam. I love all the names that they picked. :-) So, on to the 3-hour conversation.

Josh and Sara McKee informed me today that they are selling all of their possessions and moving to Hungary to become missionaries! I think this is SO awesome! They were both just telling me how God is working in their lives and how he has humbled them. God has done (and is still doing) a wonderful work in their lives, their marriage, and their family. As I was talking to them, I was being convicted of all the luxuries I have in my life that I DON"T NEED!! In the past I have often tossed around the idea of becoming a missionary but I also oten made lots of (selfish) excuses for why I shouldn't do it. In all reality, Christians are supposed to be missionaries where ever they are so no matter where I live, I should be sharing Jesus with people! Do I do that??? Not even close! As part of my journey that I started, I wanted to get closer with God. I NEED to be out sharing the Good News! I need to spend more time in prayer, more time in God's word, and more time sharing the gospel with people around me. And I do pray that God will open that door to the overseas mission field once Tyler is officially, legally our son. Not that America is not a mission field (because it CERTAINLY is) but I feel that when you go overseas , you are forced in to the RAW essentials in life. In America, there are so many things that distract Christians from God's purpose in their life. So, if you remember, please pray for our hearts to be listening to God's direction in our lives for the mission field in the future. Also, please do pray for the McKee Family as they begin their journey in to the mission field. In addition, if you would feel in your heart at all that you are being led to support them financially in getting to Hungary, I'm sure they would be so very greatful! All money to support them can be sent to:

McKee Family
1594 LaPraix St
Highland, CA 92346

Please make checks out to Sara or Josh McKee. Write Hungary in the Memo section.

I was going to post some other pics and discuss some other things but we just had a random, late night visit (after 10pm) that has just left (at 10:38pM). So, now that he has gone, I am now REALLY tired. But at least I got out the most important information. Have a blessed night!

Super Saturday & Simple Sunday

2009-06-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! I am finally getting back in the groove of writing again after not having the internet for a week! It's amazing how behind you will get once that happens. I've been trying to catch up on everyone's blogs but everyone has so much going on, it may take me a little while. But it does look like everyone is having some good times and eating some good food. So, here we go into this past weekend:

SUPER SATURDAY
This Saturday was pretty busy. It was busier than we planned it to be, but sometimes that's okay. We started our morning off with my last soccer game of the season. For those of you that don't know, I coach a kids' soccer team through a church (which my son plays on) and this past Saturday was our last game. It was pretty rough for me because the team was really starting to mold together just as the season was starting to end. This was my first time ever having to do anything with soccer and I absolutely enjoyed it. Here are some pics of my team:

From L-R: Kristina, Daylie, & Lyric

(From L-R: Tyler (my son), Joel, Lyric, & Kristina)

From L-R: Joel, Tyler, Me, Lyric, Daylie, & Kristina. There are two girls (Allie & Emily) on the team that are on the team that were not in the picture. They missed a lot of games so I don't have a lot of pictures of them. Bummer.

After our last game, the team joined me at my home for an End of the Season Team Pizza Party!! All the kids were very excited about this. They had a great time, which, of course, makes me feel good. One of the parents was so awesome in helping out with party. I didn't ask her to, she just stepped up. Here are some pics from the party:

The Spread of Food. There were 6 pizzas from Little Caesar's. Three were completely devoured (as you can see at the back of the table) and two more were halfway eaten and one full one left over. There were chips which were halfway devoured, Rolo candies which are almost gone, and some chocolate chip cookies. Mmmm..
These cookies were so addicting even though they were only Albertson's brand chocolate chip cookies. I couldn't stop eating them! Just the perfect amount of chewyness!

Of course the kids had a great time playing. We definitely can't forget that part. We had the fooseball table and hockey table out... And of course Dance Dance Revolution!!

(Allie & Daylie: Allie's not in a lot of pictures on the soccer field cause she missed a lot of games but she is a cool kid.)
Tyler and Joel playing on the hockey table

After this party was over we had a few hours of down time where I pretty much just wanted to pass out and go to sleep. But instead of doing that, we decided to try to have a last minute barbecue to help move some of the leftover food out of the house. We just grilled up some hot dogs and served the left over pizza and sides. It was great because otherwise I would have been eating everything on my own. Whew!! And of course all the fun stuff was still out so the adults had at with fooseball, hockey, and Dance Dance Revolution!! Unfortunately, don't have really any pics of this get together. I was being pretty lazy since I was so tired.

SIMPLE SUNDAY

Since Saturday was so packed, I really wanted to take it easy on Sunday. We went to church in the morning and pretty much just relaxed and did nothing for the rest of the day. My son was in trouble so he was stuck in his room so I pretty much just laid down and rested. That was definitely a simple Sunday.

GIVE AWAYS!!

Before I sign off, I wanted to let you guys know about some give aways that are going on in the blog world. Be sure to check out these sites and get in on the action!!:

Peanut Butter & Jenny is giving away a huge goodie package. Check it out!
The Health Nut is giving away some MyMix Granola: Check it out!

Have a Great Monday everyone!!

A Brief Update & Plans For The Weekend

2009-06-05T08:19:00.001-07:00

So, we have officially moved for the second time in about a month. I absolutely HATE moving but I must admit that this move was much smoother. And in addition to that, we found a place that was about $200 less than where we were AND we have WAY more space. So, after all that stress, everything worked out for the best. YAY! So, hopefully (fingers crossed) we will not have to ever move again unless we buy a house.

For the most part this has been a pretty "blah" week. Filled with getting unpacked and eating lots of unhealthy food as we always do when we move cause I'm too lazy and tired to actually cook... Bad me!! But now we are pretty much completely unpacked so we should be able to get back in to the groove of things. I took absolutely no pictures of anything that I ate. My hubby did, however, take a picture of one thing he made himself for lunch. I think he's starting to like taking pictures of his food. :-) He's so thoughtful. Now, I don't know if I would think this is too appetitzing but I'm posting because I appreciate him taking a picture of his meal. Too much hot dogs again. He didn't what all was in so I'm not quite sure. If anyone has any quesses, I'd love to hear them. Sorry for the picture being kind of dark. It was taken on his camera phone.

FOR THE WEEKEND
This weekend shoukl be pretty good. Tonight, we have Family Fun Friday scheduled. I have decided yet what we are going to have for dinner yet. Any suggestions? Something good but EASY. Cause the whole point is to not put a lot of work in to the meal. Maybe we might grill some hot dogs or burgers and enjoy some games outside. I know... that probably sounds like a weird choice since I just commented about hubby's meal being too much hot dog. But I do love them off the grill!! I just think they taste way better.

Then on Saturday morning we have our last soccer game. I am pretty sad because I had a GREAT group of kids on my team. After that, we are having our end of the season team party at my apartment. I will definitely try to make sure that I take lots of pics this time. Then Saturday afternoon, we are trying to decide if we want to go to a Strawberry Festival at Plymouth Village (a senior home in our town, Redlands, CA) or just relax.

Sunday morning we are off to church for some good teaching from the Bible. After church we usually go to lunch with my in-laws. And then we may possibly take Tyler to the San Bernardino County Museum. He's never been there before and it's usually free admittance on the first Sunday of every month. So, that's the plans for the weekend (as of right now) and probably a little more unpacking.

So, now I have to get ready and be off to work! Have a great Friday everyone!

Any big plans for the weekend?!?!?

I'm Back!!

2009-06-04T17:25:00.000-07:00

I have been without the internet for almost a week now since we moved... AGAIN!! But now I have the internet back up and I'm ready to blog (not that there was that much to blog about since I last wrote) and definitely ready to catch up on everyone else's blogs. I don't have the time to post right now but definitely look for a new post tomorrow morning or tomorrow night! I hope everyone has been having an awesome week! Mine has been weary. My body feels like it's Friday even though my mind knows that it is Thursday. Does that sound weird?? Catch up with everyone tomorrow and through the weekend! Can't wait to see what's been going on with everyone!

A Positive Way To Start My Day

2009-05-30T08:13:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to share a small triumph in my journey. It has been almost exactly 3 months since I have started this journey. DAY 1 was on February 25, 2009 (actually the official first day was a couple days earlier) and I would just like to share a little positive thing that happened this morning. I stepped on the scale and was excited to see that the scale read (drum roll please!!)... 183.6!!
To some of you this may seem like a pretty high number but it was definitely higher. Even to me this seems like a pretty high number (which I am definitely surprised that I'm sharing) but as long as the number keeps going down til I'm at a healthy weight, then I will be happy. I have not been 183 in a long time. As a matter of fact, I think that when I was gaining weight, I actually skipped right over it on the way up (if that's possible.).

Well, I have to get going. I have a soccer game to coach this morning (and next week will be my last game... :-( lonely tear drop) and then we are moving... AGAIN. We have not had a very good experience where we are so we decided to move again. I HATE moving but we have been here for a month and already know that we can't stay. But where are moving to now is WAY better and a couple hundred dollars cheaper. Score for us!

Have a great Saturday everyone! And good luck to all you bloggers out there that are running races this weekend!!

My Hubby Is So Thoughtful

2009-05-28T08:11:00.000-07:00

Taylor was so kind as to take a picture of his lunch yesterday and email it to me! He knows that I've been trying to take pictures of my meals (which I haven't done at all today) and he doesn't really like when I do it when we're not at home so I thought this was really cool that he took a picture of his lunch. I thought it was very creative but a little too much hot dog for me. :-) He has three hot dogs covered in melted cheese & relish. And then he added some strawberries on the side. Very creative hubby!
Now I am off to work. Trying to catch up on everyone's blogs today. And hopefully something worthwhile to post tonight. I can't believe it's already going to be the end of the week!

In addition, be sure to check out HangryPants for an opportunity to win some delicious Element Bars. Check it out soon as the contest ends today!!

Weekend Wrap-Up

2009-05-25T09:23:00.000-07:00

So, this weekend didn't seem very jam-packed at first but somehow, It got packed! It was a wonderful weekend. I don't have too many pictures so I will keep the words brief because I know most people like to see all the pictures with the posts. And I still have to get use to carrying my camera all over the place taking pictures. So, here we go!

FRIDAY
On Friday, we had Family Fun Friday. Often times we have watched a movie but I'm think that next week we might have to mix it up. Tyler (our 9-year old son) loves movie night because I don't think he got to watch enough movies where he was before he lived with us (may have to write a post on that someday) but I think we need to have some variety. Anyhow, first Tyler and I took a walk down to our local Blockbuster (1pt for TSL) to rent a movie. Since we get a free rental when return our Blockbuster Online video in the store, we definitely had to do that. The movie we rented was The Sword In The Stone. After that we walked (another point for TSL) to Albertson's (local grocery store) to get the food for Family Fun Friday. We basically just bought some ground turkey and some packages of Spanish rice. Then we walked home (another point. YAY!) Roundtrip, the walk was about 1.5 miles. And amazingly, my little Tyler didn't whine or complain the whole time.... but he was looking pretty tired. We didn't have to buy anything else at the store cause we had everything else we needed. I cooked up the ground turkey and the rice. Then I mixed them together. Then I put them in tortillas to make burittos. After they were wrapped I put them on the George Foreman grill for some extra goodness. :-) They were so good! And as for the time for the movie, Taylor (hubby) and I did not last very long. When 9:00 hit, we felt like it was midnight. I don't what happened but we had to call it a night. We had to tell Tyler that we would finish the movie another night. I guess we are getting old. :-) Here are the goods.

Inside the burittos were ground turkey, rice, and cheese. Then after they came off the Foreman, I sprinkled some more shredded cheese on top. On the side we had pineapple slices. In case you haven't noticed, I love fruit but I am lacking on the veggies. I need to change that. And then just for extras we had some Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Sorry no pic. SATURDAY

Saturday morning, we started off with some pancakes with more pineapples on the side. I think pineapple is my favorite fruit! In the pancake mix, I added vanilla and cinammon. It turned out SO good! But clearly I cooked one pancake longer than the other in this picture. Oops. :-) Still tasted good!
After breakfast, we headed out to our soccer game. The whole team consists of 7 players. 4 are allowed to play at a time. And we had THREE kids not come and their parents never let me know that they were not coming. So, the four players I had did an AWESOME job! These are the four players I had:

LYRIC: She is an amazing player. She always plays hard and she listens to instructions very well. Her personality is a definite bonus to this team!
DAYLIE: She loves to play defense. Sometimes I think it's just because she's lazy but she does do a good job of playing defense. But she always wants to stay back. But she came through for us on Saturday!
KRISTINA: She appears to be a shy quiet girl. She is very polite and considerate. She is usally a little bit timid on the field but this Saturday she really was on fire. She was attacking the ball over the field. She was amazing!
TYLER: Last but not least is my son. He has really improved a lot this season. He is actually following directions better and learning to have more control. He played really hard on Saturday and I am very proud of him!

We will just call these players my superstars! None of them have missed a game, except Tyler missed one due to being sick. All the ones that were not here have missed at least two. And there are only 9 games! Anyhow, we had a great game on Satuday!

So, then after we got home, and started doing our Saturday chores, my mother-in-law calls and asks if Tyler can come over to watch a movie with them. This was such a good thing becasue then Taylor and I got to hang out by ourselves. We went to Pick Up Stix, which I had a gift card for. We split Wok Combo which had sweet and sour chicken, steamed brown rice, and an egg roll. It was VERY satisfying! And then after we left there, we went to Golden Spoon to split a New York Cheese Cake Frozen Yogurt. We added strawberries, brownie crumbs, cookie dough, oreo crumbs, and of course hot fudge!!+ It was great! We got to enjoy a couple hours together with just us and we didn't spend a dime!! Well, except the gas to get to those places!! Sorry, no pictures. :-( Bummer because our food and frozen yogurt was really good!

So, then we went back home and dropped off our leftover frozen yogurt. And then we picked up the little one. By the way, we walked to the in-laws when we dropped Tyler off and when we picked him up (More points for TSL!).

So, after we got back, we just chilled at home. Tyler played with his LEGOS and Taylor and I just relaxed some more. Then we started Tyler through his evening routines of shower, chores, bed.

SUNDAY
We started Sunday morning with just some cereal. Had to keep it light because we always go out to lunch after church with the in-laws. Then we headed off to church. We had a guest speaker from Colorado (I think). He was pretty interesting. Basically he talked about having spritual courage is just like having faith. Interesting.

After church, we all headed out to Panera Bread. I just had some Cream of Brocolli soup. I did not want to ruin my appetite for the barbecue later. Usually I get the You Pick Two and get a soup and a sandwich. So, I had to resist. :-)

Then we went home and relaxed for a couple of hours. Then I cut up the watermelon for the BBQ. Around 3ish, we headed out.

The barbecue was great. There were LOTS of good eats and there were some great people there, too (some of which I haven't seen in a couple of years! So, it was kind of like a reunion.

Here's the goods!

BBQ Chicken, Hamburgers, Turkey Burgers, and Hot dogs. The Burgers were the first things done so they went fast and that's why there aren't many in this picture. They were good! Home made patties.

Deviled Eggs made by the lovely host!

Now, this is not actually my plate but it was pretty close. I only added tomato to my burger. I don't this person got all this other stuff because I couldn't even barely take a bite with just the burger and tomato. The burgers were HUGE! On the side baked bean which were delicious and corn on the cob which I heard was amazing but didn't try because of my braces. :-(

The Spread - Great variety of chips, lots of veggies, watermelon, jelly beans, pretzels, etc, etc, etc.... good stuff!
Taylor and I spent a lot of time playing table tennis. We were trying to get three balls going. We could do it for a little while but not too long. Two balls at once worked pretty well, though. It gave me a little workout to work off all the food I ate.
And here are our amazing hosts!! Matt and Bobbi McCormick. Aren't they just beautiful?!?!? I love these guys. They are so down to earth and genuine! I am truly blessed to have them in my life!

So, that pretty much wraps up the weekend. We stayed at the barbecue until about 8:30 talking with everyone but then we decided it was time to put our little man to bed. So, we headed off.

Today we have been invited to a birthday party for Bobbi's niece. And I assume at some time today we will do something for my brother-in-law, Griffin. Nothing has been said yet but his birthday is today and usually we do something at the last minute. So, that will probably be dinner tonight.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend! God Bless!!

Yesterday's Eats and Date Night

2009-05-22T08:16:00.000-07:00

YESTERDAY'S EATS

In all actuality I am really only going to show you pictures from yesterday's breakfast. Oh wait! I will also show a picture from my afternoon snack! And the reason I'm not showing the other meals is because they are not interesting. As a matter of fact, I didn't even eat lunch...again! And for dinner, hubby and I had french toast pizza with slices of pineapple on the side. It was great (mostly because it was easy) for date night which I will get to later.

So, yesterday for breakfast, I decided to make some french toast. I use to make french toast ALL the time but haven't for a long time. But last week I went to my beautiful friend, Bobbi's house for breakfast and she made me french toast. So, now I have the craving for it. Here is mine. The mix is two eggs, 1/2 cup of low fat milk, vanilla, and cinammon. And then I top it with powdered sugar. I also made scrambled eggs. There was a little bit of the egg mix so i just added more eggs to the mix (which I've never done before) and scrambled them up. It definitely makes the texture a little different but they were still pretty good. And then I added some leftover slices of oranges.
And then for my afternoon snack, I decided to try to make another Ice Blended Mocha. It tasted great but I still need to add more ice to make it a little thicker. Once I get down just right, then I won't have to buy them at Coffee Bean anymore... that's money in my pocket!! (and another point for TSL. This time I topped it with whipped cream and powder for hot choocolate! Mmm...

DATE NIGHT

In our home, date night is supposed to be on Thursday night but we haven't really done it SOOO long. But last night hubby and I made sure to just relax together. We didn't go out anywhere since we didn't ask my dad to babysit, so we rented a movie (Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull) and just had an easy dinner at home. It was really nice to just relax and just be together without stressing out about the everyday things that bog people down. I don't have any pictures which is fine because there really wasn't anything to take pictures of. Next week we are planning to have a picnic outside after our little monster goes to bed. We are going to put a blanket out in our yard, light some candles, eat, talk, and enjoy the beginnings of summer nights!

So, now I am going to be off to work. And I am definitely glad it's Friday and a 3 DAY WEEKEND!! I hope everyone has a fun, safe holiday weekend!

PLANS FOR THE WEEKEND

Friday - Family Fun Friday, will walk to Blockbuster to rent a movie and walk to the store to by food for Fun Friday.

Saturday - Soccer game in the morning, swimming at in-laws... hopefully child does not act up, RELAX

Sunday - Church, Lunch with In-laws, BBQ

Monday - We amazingly haven't made any plans. Maybe that would be a good day to get a game of ultimate frisbee together in the morning before it gets too hot!

ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND!!

Today's Eats and Farewell to My Midnight

2009-05-20T21:42:00.000-07:00

TODAY'S EATS

This morning I woke up pretty tired. At first I was thinking that I was going to just skip breakfast because I was just feeling SO lazy. I don't know what has been going on recently but I have just been feeling so lazy and tired all the time. But this morning I was determined to make myself a hot breakfast no matter what. And I will definitely say that I am glad that I did because it was so good! I made chocolate chip pancakes sprinkled with powdered sugar and a few peanut butter chips on top as well. Then I also had some cut-up pieces of watermelon and a cup of orange juice. I also tried to make my own Ice Blended Mocha (another point for TSL) but it didn't turn out anything like the ones I get at Coffee Bean. It's a work in progress but it still tasted good.

For my hubby's breakfast, I made him one large, chocolate chip pancake that was sprinkled with powdered sugar and had a heart on top made out of peanut butter chips.
Somehow, I managed to not eat lunch today. This actually happens pretty often since I started working again. But amazingly I didn't feel hungry at all until about 7pm. That's probably cause I had such a filling breakfast.

But for dinner, I made Quesadillas, Mac 'N' Cheese with sliced hot dogs, and sliced oranges and strawberries for the hubby. I had almost the same thing but instead of quesadillas (not a big quesadilla fan), I had a frozen french bread pizza. I made the quesadillas with Mission whole wheat tortilla wraps. And the strawberries were so big that I only needed to cut up four! Inside the quesadillas was cheese (obviously!) and thin slices of ham.
So, that sums up all of my eating for the day. I'm surprised I was actually able to take pictures of most of that stuff. Usually I forgot especially when it smells so good. And I am definitely one of those poeple that has to start eating while the food is freshly hot off the stove, oven, or grill.

FAREWELL TO MY MIDNIGHT

So, today was the day that I had to say good bye to my lovely dog, Midnight. I almost cried when the new owners drove away with my dog. I still can't even believe that he's not with us anymore because he was, I mean he IS, such a great dog. Here is the last picture of him I will ever have. I took it today while we were waiting for his new owner's.
I will have to post some other random pics of him on another post just for the heck of it. Well, I need to get to bed. I really want to try to get up at 5am tomorrow so I can get in some exercise. I've REALLY slacked since we moved but I really need to get my schedule under control. I hope everyone's week has been going well so far. Be encouraged that it's halfway over and we (most of us) have a 3-day weekend!

Question of the Day: What are the exciting plans that everyone has for Memorial Day weekend?

GOOD NIGHT!!

"Midnight" Madness and Dancing With The Stars

2009-05-19T22:14:00.000-07:00

So, I would like to introduce you all to my wonderful Black Labrador... His name is Midnight. I absolutely love this dog and I am very saddened to inform you all that we have to find a new home for him. We recently moved to a place where the owner originally told us that we could bring him with us here. Well, almost a month after we moved in, we have been informed that we can no longer have him here anymore. So, we have had the stress of trying to find an immediate new home for our awesome dog! We have been blessed by the sister of one of my co-workers who is going to take him and I know she is going to take good care of him. It is a very bitter-sweet feeling. I am so sad to lose my Midnight but I am definitely very happy that he will still be in a good home. I will very much miss him! :-( Can you believe that I am actually tearing up just writing about this?!?!?!?!? So, tomorrow afternoon, my Midnight will be living with another family. So, moving on because that is very sad to me. Sorry to be so depressing...

So, what did I eat today? Hmm.....

This morning I simply had a bowl of cereal with some strawberries. This is the Stater Bros. (local grocery store) brand version of Honey Nut Cheerios. I was being pretty lazy so I just had this bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice.
Then for lunch, I tried one of these CedarLane Burritos. At first I wasn't quite sure if I was going to enjoy but I actually liked it better than I thought I would. I'm not quite sure how healthy it (it is a frozen burrito, after all) but here are the nutrition facts. They were pretty filling but kind of pricey.
I accompanied this burrito with some Salsa Verde Doritos and some grapes. And I brought them all to work in my handy-dandy lunch box that I got from coaching my son's basketball team.

And as for my dinner, it so ridiculous that I chose not to take a picture. It was just one of those French Bread Pizzas by Red Baron. Totally not healthy but I love them and they're easy.

DANCING WITH THE STARS
So, I just finished watching the finale for Dancing With The Stars. I don't know about you all, but I LOVE this show! It makes me really want to take some dance classes. I love to see the progress that some of the stars make - especially the ones that start off not so good and then become one of the contenders. Anyhow, tonight was a really good finale! And the person that I wanted to win was the winner! Good Job Shawn!!! (not that she would ever read this) i would love to be on this show.... Too bad I'm not a star. :-( I just wanted to throw that out about this show because I really enjoy it.

I hope everyone's week is going well so far! Mine has started off rough but I hope it gets better from here. I'm sure it will!

Weekend Wrap Up

2009-05-17T21:38:00.000-07:00

So, I was quite dreading the social worker visiting but it actually was not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. This social worker was actually somewhat reasonable. When the FFA (Foster Family Agency) social worker came, she nitpicked at EVERYTHING which was so annoying. I asked her to wait a few days since we just moved in but she said it wouldn't matter as long as we had the basics (smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, first aid kits, and stuff like that) but then she started dinging us for having boxes lying around and little things like that. It was SO annoying.... but at least this worker was so much more understanding.

Since I was already late to work, I decided not to ride my new bike to work because I wanted to get in as many hours as possible. But I did have to take a picture of just for you guys. It's a picture kind of taken at night so I will definitely get a picture, probably tomorrow morning when I am about to ride to work. But this will do for now.

It was a fairly inexpensive bike (especially with the cans and bottles I recycled to help pay for it). It is a Triax Mountain Bike. Notice that it still has all the store tags on it! Yep, I've actually been riding it like that! :-) Such a loser, huh?

We were supposed to have Family Fun Friday but my son was still kind of sick but he was being such butt-head because it was refusing to eat or drink anything that actually might help him get better and all he wanted was junk food. So, we cancelled Family Fun Friday and gave my son some vegetable soup which he absolutely hated and refused to eat. Hubby and I had vegetable soup, two slices of pizza and some mixed fruit. We had all kinds of fruit available so I just cut up a pear, a banana, and some strawberries and mixed it together.
That pretty much wraps up Friday. So, moving on to Saturday...

Saturday morning I coached my son's soccer team BUT without my son. We made him stay home on sick bed because he was still sick and refusing to eat. Well, since Tyler was still refusing to eat, we put him on "sick bed" all day on Satuday. He claimed that he didn't care. But when he found out that I planned a suprise pizza party for the soccer team, he was NOT happy. So, he completely missed out on that. That cost me 5 points on the TSL challenge but it was totally worth it to have the party for my team. Unfortunately, I am a lame loser and have zero pictures from the party. Lame!

And the rest of Saturday was pretty non-eventful. I was pretty tired after the team party. I wanted to go to bed early. And then when Sunday came, I woke up with a huge headache so I skipped church and tried to rest. Unfortunately, my son was still being a butt-head today so there wasn't much time for rest. But I am going to sign off for now and hopefully get some rsst. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!! Will check up on some blogs in the morning! Good night!

OH!! I just remembered that I wanted to show you what I made for my friend for her birthday! It probably might seem cheesy but I thought it was cool. I made the coupon on my computer cut it out and glued on foam paper. I hope she likes it:-) 1 pt for TSL!!

Good night!!

Friday At Last

2009-05-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

So, it's finally Friday and the morning has started off kind of rough. My son was having some major attitude. Last night he refused his dinner which was soup (with lots of veggies) so I, of course, warmed that up for his breakfast as I always do when he refuses dinner. Well, he tried to refuse it again this morning and only got partially finished. He took FOREVER getting ready. He missed the bus and he was late to school. Grrr. In addition I have Tyler's adoption social worker (one of the THREE social workers that we have to deal with for Tyler...ugh) is coming by today to see our new place so he can inspect it. Well, techinically, it is 10:12 and he was suppopsed to be here at 10:00. So, right now I'm just waiting...Oh wait! He's here now! Will write later!!

Hooray For Hump Day!!

2009-05-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

Well, honestly today was a pretty decent day. It started off wonderful (Thank you Bobbi!!) and it ended great, too. So, let's start from the beginning.

This morning my wonderful friend, Bobbi, was so kind as to make breakfast for me. She not only made me breakfast but she made a WONDERFUL breakfast. She made me some amazing french toast that had some peanut butter spread and top and was topped with bananas and blackberries. It was SO good. She also had fruit on the side and she made fresh squeezed orange juice as well. Is she amazing or what?!?!?!? Well, I think she's amazing!! :-) Here are some pics of the wonderful breakfast.
Then after breakfast, I brought Bobbi to work to help her not to drive for the TSL Challenge. And then after that, I went straight to work which was a pretty normal day. Nothing too exciting happened

I have suddenly gotten so tired. So, I think that I am for the most part going to skip the rest of my day and get to the good part. Basically, I got a new bike today!! Woo hoo! I saved up some cans and bottles to pay for a portion of it (not as much as I thought the recycling would add up to) and I was able to get a bike today. Unfortunately I won't be able to ride it to work tomorrow because I have to go straight from work (early) to pick up Tyler and take him to a psych visit. But if he didn't have that appointment, I would be riding my bike to work tomorrow. it's been a while since I have actually owned a bike so I am pretty excited. I rode it around a little bit just in our yard and my legs were already starting to get tired. That doesn't look to promising for me. :-( Well, I have to get off to bed. I will post some pics of my new bike tomorrow. Hope every had a great Hump Day!

My Boy Is Home Sick

2009-05-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

This morning when I woke my son up for school, he started complaining about his head hurting and was trying to tell me he didn't feel good. Well, being the hard-nosed tough mom that I am, I sent him to school anyways. In the past he has tried to pretend to be sick so that he could get the nice, cushy sick treatment. Well, today I thought that I would just send him to school and if his teacher could be convinced that he was sick then I would just come back and get him. Well, she did call and say that he wasn't feeling well. Apparently he wasn't too bad but he got worse as they got in to the day a little bit more. So, off I went to go pick him up. And here he is, all laid up in bed. Can you believe that he said it was okay for me to take this picture?
So, since Tyler is home sick, I had to take the day off of work. Now, I was kind of bummed because we need the money but it's also a good thing since I really feel that I just need a day to myself and I think this the closest to a day to myself that I am going to get. But since I have the time, I might as well update a little on my daily eats.

Yesterday's Breakfast; Very Simple Toast and Eggs

Yesterday's Mid-day Snack: Marble cake with chocolate frosting. I made this for myself on Mother's Day! :-) But have been sharing it with the fam. I wonder if that counts for a point for the TSL challenge. Hmmm....

Yesterday's Lunch: Turkey sandwich with a banana. Accidentally took a bite before I remembered to take the picture. Oops.

Yesterday's Dinner: Turkey burgers on the George Foreman Grill. Also had some chips on the side.I forgot to take a picture of dinner. Have to get use to taking pictures of what I eat.

Didn't seem like yesterday had balanced meals. There were some healthy things in there but I can't believe I didn't add any fruit to any of those meals especially since we have so much fruit in our house.

As for this morning, I made some delicious pancakes which I also forgot to take a picture of. They just smell so good when they are piiping hot, I just had to dig in. :-)

And since I have been home I have done some laundry and tidied our bedroom which has been a disaster since we moved. And now I will have to sign off and get some more stuff done. Have a wonderful day everyone! And tomorrow morning I get to enjoy the wonderful french toast from Mrs. Bobbi McCormick! Woo hoo!

My First Mother's Day

2009-05-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

This morning I wrote a blog of how Mother's Day Weekend has been going so far... Well, now the day is pretty much over and I need to recap the day.

This morning as I was writing my last post my boys were making me breakfast! This is what it was... chocolate flavored pancakes in the shape of hearts!! They were SO good! But let me start from the beginning. When I first came down the stairs my men were waiting with a rose each. :-)

Then from there came the very delicious pancakes that I enjoyed very much. Mmmm...
Then after eating breakfast, the three of us went to church where they had carnations for anyone to give to their mothers. After church we went out to lunch with my in-laws as we do pretty much every Sunday. We almost always go to Panera.

After that I took my 13 year-old little bro-in-law to go get something for his mom for Mother's Day. While we were at the store, my hubby and my son had something else in the works. So, when I got home there was another Mother's Day surprise for me - A Fruit Spectacular!

Then after that was finished we went to the in-laws to celebrate Mother's Day with my mother-in-law. We just hung out with the fam. We played some tennis and had some pasta (unfortunately didn't have my camera and then she opened her gifts. This is what we made (oh yeah! another point for TSL Challenge!) for her! We took the picture of her before we went to her house.

We took a picture of us making the shape of an "A" and title it "A" mom. The sign says "You're an Amazing mom!" It's kind of an inside joke about Taylor's mom (who raised him) and his birth mom. Taylor's mom loved the picture. And then, of course, I made my own frame.

So, that is my recap of my first Mother's Day. There were some issues with my son but I won't really go into that so that I can focus on the good parts. All in all, it was a great first Mother's Day! Thank you to my wonderful hubby who helped make it happen!!!!!

Mother's Day Weekend Thus Far

2009-05-10T07:39:00.000-07:00

So, today is Mother's Day... a day dedicated to celebrating mothers. This is my very first Mother's Day as a mother. It's kind of weird because I always thought my first Mother's Day would be with a baby but my first Mother's Day is with a wonderful 9-year old boy.

Here is a picture my son, Tyler, and me before his first basketball game in January. I was able to coach his team.

This weekend was supposed to be so eventful but I think that we tried to plan too many events in to 3 days. So, here is a little bit of a wrap-up of the weekend so far. I will try to write more this evening to re-cap Mother's Day.

FRIDAY
Friday is normally supposed to Family Fun Friday but somehow the time got away from us and it just got too late. We were supposed to grill up some turkey burgers and watch a movie out under the stars. The Friday movie of choice was The Sandlot, a oldie but a goodie. Unfortunately there wasn't time so we pretty much fed the child and sent him to bed. Bummer.

SATURDAY
Saturday morning started with a soccer game. I am currently coaching Tyler's soccer team. And yesterrday we got our pictures that we ordered. Here is our team picture with Tyler's individual picture right above it.
We had a GREAT game yesterday. The kids are SO amazing! And as for Tyler, he is finally starting to understand that listening to the coaches helps him do well in games and practices! These are really good kids. They don't know it yet but next Saturday I am throwing a surprise pizza party for them. ( I know that will cost me 5 points on The Simple Lfe Challenge but it will be worth it!)

After the game we got showered up and headed over to my parents' house to celebrate Mother's Day with my mom. Normally we do it on Sunday but my dad decided to barbecue yesterday and so we just decided to do all the gifts yesterday. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the food because the batteries to my camera were starting to die. But before that happened I was able to get a pic of me and my mom.

And this is the picture we did to make my mom's Mother's Day gift. We took this picture yesterday and got it developed at Target and then I made a frame out of construction paper. And I was actually surprised how much my mom loved the gift. (She's sometimes really picky about her gifts.)

We were supposed to go to a Late, Last Minute Baby Shower for my brother's new baby boy. But since he scheduled at the same time as the barbecue at my parents' house, we were unable to make. My brother plans things very strangely... but that's a whole other story that I don't need to get in to.

So, after the barbecue at my dad's house, we rushed home because we foolishly also planned a barbecue at our own home with some of our friends... not so smart because we were really tired. But once people started showing up, we had a good time anyways. We grilled up some hot dogs and turkey burgers. Then of course we had some chips and some watermelon on the side.

This is a picture of Bailey (my brother-in-law who is 13) with my son Tyler and his buddy, Daniel. Whenever Bailey comes over, he always takes over the grill.
After we all ate, we roasted marshmallows. Danny actually preferred to just completely catch his on fire. :-) And here comes his dad to the rescue!
And here's a picture of my hubby, Taylor, and Tyler with our friend, Brian, and his son Danny. I guess that's the perfect father and son pic in front of a fire.

So, that pretty much wraps up the weekend thus far! As I am typing this my hubby and my son are making me breakfast! Woo hoo! And then we are off to church! So, I hope everyone has a great Mother's Day!

Question of the Day: Does anyone have any great Mother's Day stories to share?

The Simple Life Challenge

2009-05-08T07:53:00.000-07:00

So, I have joined in The Simple Life Challenge over at N Her Shoes and I find that is such a great idea. The biggest challenge is making sure to eat every meal at home because sometimes when it gets time to make dinner, I am so exhausted. This challenge will last through the month of May and there are some great prizes which I would LOVE to win.

Just also throwing out the Mac 'N' Cheese question. We bought this gigantic box of Mac 'N' Cheese probably a year ago and I would hate to throw it away but I need to figure out different ways to cook it or add to it so it's not the same thing over and over. Please send any suggestions my way.

I'm trying to get back in the groove of writing again since it's been a while. I will be posting more pics of the going ons of life soon, too. I hope every has had a great week and is has fun things planned for the weekend!

This weekend is pretty packed for us! Tonight we have Family Fun Friday. I belive we are going to barbecue some Turkey Burgers, and watch a movie outside under the stars. Saturday morning I am coaching my son's soccer game and then my brother and his wife are throwing a late baby shower in the afternoon for my new nephew Terrence. Then Sunday is Mother's Day so of course there will be festivities. Sunday afternoon my dad is barbecuing for lunch and then we will go to my in-laws for dinner. That will be full of lots of pictures.

Part of The Simple Life Challenge suggestion is making gifts for people instead of buying them. I have some good ideas for Mother's Day but not sure if I could pull it off.

Question of the Day: If you were to make a gift for your mom, what would you make?

So...

2009-05-06T07:53:00.000-07:00

I am finally writing my post to catch up anyone who has been reading this blog. I know that there hasn't been that many of you but let me do some catching up for those few supporters that I do have and truly appreciate.

So, my last post was on March 20th. Wow!! That was a LONG time ago. For a couple of weeks of that time our internet was completely acting up so I had no access to it. At first I felt like I was totally missing it but then at them same time it was also a bit freeing, not stressing about emails and blogs. But I knew I still wanted to get back to it! And then we recently moved so we had to wait for the service to transfer. So, now that we are back up and running, I can get back to it. Woo hoo!

So, let me give a little update on my Jillian workouts. I, sadly, have not done them in at all in this whole past month. I was very disappointed in myself since it is an amazing workout. But I am working on getting back to it tonight. I think I am going to push myself up to Level 2 and see how that works for me. I'm sure it's going to be killer!! In addition to this workout, though, I need to find some other videos that I can alternate it with. If anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

Even though I've been missing my Jillian workouts, I've still been managing to get in some good exercise. I've organized about 3 games of ultimate frisbee, a basketball game, and hopefully soon I would love to organize a game of kickball! I am also coaching my son's soccer team and I am very determined to run with them when they have to do laps and I am trying to make sure that I do drills with them and somehow work the coaches in to the scrimmage so I can run around with them, too. We only play on a mini soccer field but I definitely still get a workout with them. I have been trying to take my dog (and my son) out for a walk regularly, which I am unfortunately not very consistent with yet.

Since I have started this journey, I have lost about 6 pounds. I am now weighing at 188 pounds and I am really to start kicking this in to gear. So, if anyone has any great workout suggestions or quick healthy meal ideas, I would greatly appreciate them. Also, I have TONS of boxes of Macaroni and Cheese and if anyone has any suggestions for some creative different ways to cook it or add to it, I would love that, too. A couple days ago, I grilled some hot dogs on the George Foreman (which I love), sliced them up and put them in the mac 'n' cheese. They were good!!

So, that is my update on my journey! Sorry there are no pictures. Have not downloaded any of them since the move. I hope everyone is having a great week!

It's been SO long....

2009-04-28T19:39:00.000-07:00

since I have written a post!! For a long time my internet has been acting up and I have not been able to write any posts. Blah! But now that everything is up and running, hopefully I will be able to update everyone on what's been going on (not that it's THAT exciting) and hopefully keep up with the posting.

Look for an update soon!

Newsboys Concert

2009-03-20T23:14:00.000-07:00

So, tonight I was able to go to a Newsboys concert at my church! It was AWESOME! Recently the lead singer of the Newsboys, Peter Fuller, stepped down and over the past few weeks has been integrating a new lead singer in to the band. Can you believe that is the former lead singer of DC Talk, Michael Tait?!?!? Well, tonight was so amazing to hear the Newsboys with Michael Tait as the lead singer! And it was also cool because they played Newsboys songs and DC Talk songs. It was like seeing TWO concerts in one night! And everyone loved the show.

Unfortunately, I was a LAME-O once again and I forgot my camera. I have been forgetting that A LOT lately! Grr.. And there were some great pics to be taken. Well, during part of one of the songs, the drummers platform was raised and while he was doing his solo, the platform tilted forward and started spinning. It was great! Lucky for me, lots of other people have recorded it at other concerts so I'm just gonna show you what they captured. Same thing as our show.

Newsboys Drummer in Concert

In addition to that, this concert was so AMAZING because the TRUTH was spoken throughout the whole concert! I'm really going to have to start using some of these concerts as a ministry to my unbelieving friends. The music is GREAT which can attract an unbeliever, but then once they are there, they will hear God's truths!! Wonderful!!!

This may have been one of my favorite concerts ever!! Although I still think the Barlow Girls concerts were pretty great, too. They also made sure to preach God's truths throughout their concerts. I love to see these artists using their talent to reach people for God's Kingdom! AMEN!!!

Weekend Wrap-Up

2009-03-15T16:47:00.000-07:00

So, the weekend is over and I must say that it was actually a pretty good weekend. It went by so fast and I can't believe that it is going to be Monday again already. I also want to say that I am so impressed by all those bloggers out there that have a post every day of the week. I can't even imagine blogging every single day. For one, I find it hard to find the time and then second of all, I don't know if I would have something to blog about everyday. My life just isn't as exciting as the rest of you blogging enthusiasts. Well, let me get in to the weekend wrap-up.

FRIDAY
Well, I started my weekend with a wonderful award celebration for the basketball league that I was coaching in at my church. It was great. They brought in this Christian entertainer/comedian who the kids ALL loved. His name is Keith Coast and he definitely had the kids laughing. I just want to share a video of something he did at the awards night. This is not at our awards night but it's the exact same thing that he did at our show. This was taped at another event that he went to. And for some reason I just can't seem to figure out how to get this video posted on my site but here is the link. It's about a 6 minute video. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GpNtRW_m80

SATURDAY
This was the first Saturday in a long time that I was actually able to sleep in. I definitely enjoyed it. And then we all had a late breakfast. After that, my hubby, my son, and I went to Del Rosa Lanes to meet my parents for some bowling. We got in four games in about 2 hours. That was pretty good with the 5 people playing. My first game started off pretty good, finishing off at about 160ish and then after that each game got worse but I still had a lot of fun. But my philosophy is that I always have to break 100 pts even when I'm not bowling well. We were all pretty tired after bowling. Taylor, Tyler, and I went home afterwards and rested for about an hour and a half. Then we headed right back out to play some basketball with a couple of friends. We had a great time. We did girls versus boys and us girls kicked the guys' butts!! It was great.

Unfortunately, I have NO pictures from this weekend because I was too busy enjoying myself that I totally forgot to bring a camera and take pictures. Bummer.

SUNDAY
No exercise on Sunday. This morning we went to church and after that we didn't really do anything exciting. We were all really tired and we had LOTS of laundry to do.

So, that is my weekend wrap-up. I'm really going to have get more pictures in because I know that no one is going to want to only sit and read all of my boring stuff. I hope everyone has a great start to their week!

P.S. - Check out a couple of contests going on in the Blog World!
Every Gym's Nightmare is giving away a One Year Subscription to Fitness Magazine
N Her Shoes is giving away some MyMix Granola

I Finally...

2009-03-11T21:32:00.000-07:00

Worked out with Jillian again! I REALLY had to make myself do it tonight because I was feeling extremely tired and lazy but I am SO glad that I did it. And I feel way better afterwards. I even felt like it wasn't as hard this time as it was last week!! Don't get me wrong...This is definitely a tough workout but I didn't feel as much like I couldn't do it as I did last week. So, I am starting up again. Hopefully, I can really stick with and also get my food consumption under control, too! One step at a time! I'm on my way!

P.S.
Every Gym's Nightmare is having a Second Chance Giveaway for things she has given away before. Check it out to see what's in the give away!

P.S....

2009-03-10T22:37:00.001-07:00

This morning I forgot to mention that I got some coupons from Odwalla!!! And I am really excited to use them! The first time I tried these was when I went to the San Diego Zoo Walk. They had samples of the juices the first year and samples of the bars the second year. They are SOOO good!! I just wanted to note that wonderful treat that I received in the mail.

Also, I forgot my camera so I didn't get any work pictures. Hopefully before the end of the week. :-)

In addition, check out some give aways that are going on the blog world:

The Health Nut is giving away a Nalgene 32 oz. BPA Water Bottle
***CORRECTION!! The Health Nut is ACTUALLY giving away a handy dandy Meal Organizer this week. Sorry the water bottle was last week. :-(

N Her Shoes is giving away 2 Bottles of Country Bob's All Purpose BBQ Sauce

Have a great rest of the week!!

I TOTALLY BLEW IT :-(

2009-03-09T09:51:00.000-07:00

So, for my weekend wrap-up, I would like to say that I totally blew it with my 30-Day commitment to Jillian. I have missed my workout everyday since Thursday (including my WHOLE weekend!!). Now I feel like I have this HUGE set back and I feel like I am starting over from square one again. This did not make me happy.

However, other than that, my weekend was pretty good. We had Family Night Friday. We ordered a Little Caesar's Pizza and had some salad and grapes with it. Then we just relaxed and watched a movie. It was a really nice, relaxing evening.

Then on Saturday morning, I had my final basketball game with my kids. I coach a kids' basketball team through the Upward Sports program at Immanuel Baptist Church. I coached 3rd-4th grade boys and girls. After the game we had a pizza party at Uncle Howie's Pizza in Redlands. The kids got to enjoy the games. And I gave them certificates and we played some trivia game for prizes. We did that with my first team when I coached with my best friend. It was a great time. I'm gonna miss the kids but I am kinda glad the season is over. I like not having that absolute commitment every Saturday morning especially with Tyler here.

Then on Sunday we didn't really do too much because Tyler was having some attitude problems. It all started at church when he stole the snacks from another Sunday school class and claimed them as his own. After he was already caught he finally admitted that they weren't his. But because he had stolen those, we gave him a packet which at the end asks him to write a paragraph stating "How will we know that you have learned your lesson about stealing?" Well, he really did not like that question so he wasted the whole day away sitting at the table, not working on his packet. So, our Sunday was oh so boring. Blah!

Tomorrow I am going to try to remember to bring my camera to work so that I can take some pictures of my workplace. I hope I remember. I hope everyone had a great Monday! :-)

End of the Week Wrap-Up

2009-03-08T09:22:00.000-07:00

So, I have not posted in a few days. This has been kind of a rough week for me. I started a new job this week and that has been exhausting. The job itself has not been exhausting, but scheduling it around marriage, family, and school has been the exhausting part. I even missed two days of Jillian's 30 Day Shred. That was quite discouraging. So, I started my new job on Tuesday. And basically, what I do is braid wire harnesses for classic cars. I have never had any experience doing this sort of thing but it's quite interesting. I NEVER thought that I would ever being working in the automobile world but here I am now. The other people at my work actually assemble wire harnesses but I am CERTAINLY not at that level. Next week I will try to take some pics of my workplace. In addition to that, I am also the one who ships out all their goodies. So, that job has changed my whole schedule around. I go straight to work right after school until about dinner time. I am the one who cooks dinner so that has kinda made me really lazy about making a well-balanced meal. I need to figure out a new schedule. I will have to start using my crock-pot more since it has ALWAYS came in handy on full work-days.

In addition to this stuff, on Thursday morning my hubby and I had to meet with ALL the social workers involved with our adoption process with Tyler. For those of you that don't know, we have a 9[year old boy, named Tyler, whoc we are currently in the process of adopting. Well, Monday was supposed to be the court date when the birth parents' rights were terminated but instead they had a continuance... ugh. Well, when we met with the social workers, they explained why. Basically, they have a lot of concerns that they want to have addressed before moving forward. Some of them are legitimate and some of them are REALLY lame. And on top of everything else, they think that the expectations for Tyler in this home (and in his classroom) are way too high. What they don't realize is that Tyler is fully capable of meeting those expectations. He has them completely fooled which is pretty sad. Anyhow, that put another damper on our week and I was pretty bummed ot hear all the stuff that they were saying. So, that was definitely a downer. :-(

Now moving on to Thursday night. Taylor and I finally got to go on another date night. Yay!!! My dad was so gracious as to watch Tyler again. Yay for DAD!! So, Taylor and I decided to go to Mimi's Cafe for dinner. I was not impressed with my meal but Taylor said his was pretty good.

He had their 1/4 lb burger with fries, medium-well
I had what they call their Thanksgiving Meal. I wasn't that impressed and the turkey was kinda cold when. The whole meal included turkey w/ gravy, mashed potatoes, corn-bread stuffing, and cranberry sauce. The meal wasn't actually that bad but I definitely like my turkey WARM! And they do have a healthier Thanksgiving dinner that had rice instead of potatoes and NO GRAVY! I'm not that healthy with my food yet so I opted to have the gravy. :-)

Date Night was the first night that I missed Jillian's 30 Day Shred. I will definitely have to get my workout in the morning when we have a date night because afterwards I'm already so tired, especially after school, work, and Tyler.

Now moving on to Friday. Every Friday I get off of work at 2:30 because that is what time we close which is SO awesome!! Friday nights is when we try to do family night. So, we had a $5.00 Little Caesar's Hot-N-Ready Pizza and some salad, grapes, and some chips. Then we watched "Nim's Island" which was actually pretty decent. But by the time it was over I was feeling too tired to do Jillian's workout. So, now I missed TWO workouts!!! This is not good. So, that is how my week ended.

I'll write more later to tell about my weekend, since it's not quite over yet. :-)

Manic Monday

2009-03-03T21:42:00.001-08:00

MONDAY MANIA
So yesterday, I totally did not plan my day very well to get in my Pilates workout (or any other workout). I had to be in Indio by 8am (coming from Redlands is a little over an hour drive). So, I did plan very well to get a morning workout starting from the night before. I didn't go to bed until Midnight and then woke up at 5:45am in order to leave by 6:30am. So, then I didn't really get back to Redlands until after noon. And the time between noon and 3:00pm went by so fast that I feel like they didn't exist. The time was just spent running errands such as going to the post office, the bank, and little things like that. But they just consumed time.

After that I began to prepare some food for a birthday party that I was going. It took lots of time so I had to start early and the party didn't even start until 7:00pm. The dish that I made is called Lumpia which I learned how to make from my mom. It is a filipino dish and has always been a HUGE hit with my friends. Normally I make it with ground beef but in attempt to be a little healthier, I used ground turkey this time. Here are some pics of the process:

Ground Turkey while still cooking on the stove. There are also cut up green and red bell peppers, onions, and black pepper added to the meat.
This is some of the lumpia after being rolled. You basically put about a tablespoon of the meat (after it has cooled) on the wrapper (basically really thin pastry wrappers) and roll them up. And I use a mixture of flower of water as paste to keep them rolled up.

Here's the first batch of finished lumpia. Once they are rolled you can either stick them in the freezer to cook later or cook them right away. You just fry them in vegetable oil until lightly browned since all the meat is already cooked.

So, I was able to finish the lumpia just in time to go to the party. EVERYBODY loved them and I wasn't even able to take any home for left overs. But these definitely were not the only good thing to eat there. My friend, Grace, brought these "Apple Pie Apples" from the Chocolate Factory and they were Oh So Good!!

This is Veronica (the birthday girl) holding onthe Apple Pie Apple and Grace stuffing her face with one of the slices that were already cut. They were Super GOOD!!
Here's a close up of the apples sliced up. Don't they look just scrumptious!?!?

In addition to these delicious apples, Veronica's mom (and Veronica's daughter helped) also made a HUGE birthday cake. It was chocolate cake with sliced bananas across the top. I totally justified all the desserts because there was fruit involved. :-) There was also Neopolitan ice cream which I was able to resist.

So, my original plan was only to stay for about an hour because the party started pretty late in to the evening and I knew that I still didn't get my dose of Jillian's 30 Day Shred. Unfortunately, I didn't leave until about 11:00pm. I just couldn't help it since there was people that I hadn't seen in SO long and I couldn't help but stay and chat. So, I got home around 11:30pm and still attempted to do my workout but about 10 minutes in to it, I just had to stop. I felt like I was going to just fall asleep with the weights in my hands. So, I just decided to stop. I still worked up a sweat but I know I didn't get the most out of the workout. I was able to go to sleep at about midnight.

TIME-SENSITIVE TUESDAY
So, this morning, I had to get to school by 8:00am. After my classes I just ate a quick lunch, which consisted of half of a turkey club sandwich (leftover from yesterday's lunch) and some grapes. Then after school, I went to my first day of work.

My first day of work was pretty good. Everyone seems so friendly and nice. And I got quite the workout while there. Due to some re-organizing that was going on when I got to work today, I got a great physical workout, which included taking boxes downstairs, taking lots of trash down the stairs to the dumpster, breaking down empty boxes, etc. After work i was pretty tired and I almost decided not to do Jillian's workout but then I made sure that I stuck to my commitment. I got off of work at 3:30pm (will be working short days every Tuesday) and went straight to pick up Tyler and take him to his therapy session in Highland at 4:00pm. Then right after that at 5:00pm, I coached my 3rd/4th grade basketball team until 6:00pm. Then I got dinner ready for Tyler and after that I finally got a moment to rest. After I winded down for about an hour, then I was able to do my workout.

So, that is where I am now. Had my workout and started blogging. Now, I'm pretty tired so I will be showering and hitting the bed. I hope everyone had a wonderful Manic Monday and Time-Sensitive Tuesday. :-)

The End of The Weekend and I Survived

2009-03-01T23:00:00.000-08:00

So, it is now Sunday and I have been pretty good about making sure I get in a workout. Since I bought Jillian's 30 Day Shred, I have decided that I really want to do it everyday for 30 days. I started it on Friday, February 27, 2009. I did it yesterday and I have done it again tonight. So, this means that March 28, 2009 will be my 30th day. So, I really need to make sure that I schedule this in to each day just as I would with school, work, appointments, and just like I should be doing with my time with God. I am going to start making a weekly schedule which will definitely include time with God and exercise scheduled in.

Long Time Friends
Today I got to see a friend that I have not seen in SO long. She has been out doing the Good Work of our Father for the past 2 years. And now she is back for a few weeks before returning. There was a little party to celebrate her being here and let me just tell you that there was TONS of good food. Sadly, I did not stick to the healthy stuff such as these:
I went straight for the good stuff (but not as healthy stuff). And really, this family made everything as healthy as possible but my thing was that I didn't necessarily lean towards the healthiest things. I went straight for the meats and breads (wheat breads, though):

These are the meat dishes. I have no idea what they are called specifically but I know the two shredded meats are chicken and pork (I think). I only ate the chicken and it was GOOD. I was able to show some self control and NOT go back for seconds even though I REALLY wanted to.

This is turkey meat balls. They were GREAT. And I still managed to only get firsts.
And then comes my TOTAL weakness... DESSERT. Well, they had these AMAZING cookies. As you can see, they did not last long. They were home made. Chocolate Chip, Oatmeal, and Snickerdoodles. Oh SO good!! I managed to refrain to only one chocolate chip cookie and one snickerdoodle. Once upon a time I would have REALLY eaten A LOT more, especially at this house where there is ALWAYS good food.
Now, if you notice, in the bottom right hand corner of the above picture, there is a zip-lock bag full of Snickerdoodle cookies. That bag has about 20 cookies in and believe it or not, they were set aside before I got there and sent home with because they remembered that I always loved those Snickerdoodle cookies. So, I showed restraint at the party but I know they will be totally be tempting me at home.

Now, I would show pictures of the people party but I didn't want to compromise anybody's work. And for those of you that know what the Good Work is, then you know why I didn't post the pictures.

So, onward to start my next week of my new lifestyle!! I am starting to feel better already and I have been sleeping much better since I have started exercising everyday. So, I hope that I can really stick with it.

P.S....

2009-02-27T22:37:00.000-08:00

So, I decided to go get Jillian's 30 Day Shred! I was already strongly considering it after reading my friend, Bobbi's, reviews on her blog and then when she suggested it on the comments, I just couldn't resist. Well, I just ran over to Target tonight and bought it. And then, of course, I tried it out. 20 minutes never seemed so long as it did tonight!! It REALLY gives you a work out!! Now I know why Bobbi was raving about it. It works EVERYTHING in just 20 minutes. I only did level 1 and I thought I was going to die. Level 2 and 3 must be BRUTAL!! But I definitely see why you get such great results from this workout. I will definitely have to fit that in to my workout schedule. It may have to replace the running. Thanks Bobbi for the suggestion!!

End of the Week Wrap-Up

2009-02-27T07:22:00.000-08:00

So, I made it to Friday and stayed committed to the exercise. My flaws DEFINITELY lie in my eating habits. But I was very happy to stick to the workouts that I planned for this week. I even added a little run yesterday. I guess it was really a run/walk. It was about a mile and a half. Sadly, it's a mile and a half that I use to run with my friend all the time and we would run the whole thing. It's definitely different running by myself, especially since I'm not a big runner. But here is what my workout schedule looked like this week:

Monday - 30 minutes of Pilates
Tuesday - Nothing scheduled, but did play tag with Tyler (my 9 year old son)
Wednesday - 30 minutes of Pilates
Thursday - Nothing was originally scheduled but decided to do a short run/walk. It was a mile and a half. It took me about 20 minutes.
Friday - 30 minutes of Pilates. As of writing this post, I haven't done it yet but I am doing it right after I drop Tyler off from school.

So, that was my workout schedule. I would put my meals on here but they are not as triumphant as the exercise. So, for next week my schedule will pretty much be the same with the exercise except that I will be scheduling in a run on Tuesday and Thursday. I am not much of a person to run just to run, so I need to figure out other ways that are fun to get that exercise in. I'm thinking about joining a dance class or maybe start going to my friends Aerobic Kickboxing Class (AKB). My friend Bobbi teaches an AKB class and she said that she might be able to get me a visitor's pass that lasts for four visits, I think. She also has an amazing website all about her healthy journey. You should check it out at N Her Shoes. That's all for now!

Day 3

2009-02-25T20:47:00.000-08:00

So, today I did my 30 minutes of Pilates again. It still was pretty brutal but I wasn't in nearly as much pain as I was the first time. And this time I'm not as sore afterwards as I was last time. So, this is definitely a good thing. And I can already feel my abs getting in shape! Woo hoo! Tomorrow I think I will try my first short run. It will probably be a mile and a half or two miles. I guess that's short to some but not to others. I say "short" but I know it will be a lot of work for me.

I think that I might try to do the "Run Through Redlands" this year as a little motivator. It's only a 5k run so I know that I can do it, especially since I once helped a friend train for that event before. But it always seems that I'm not as motivated for myself. So, now I have to kick my own butt in to gear.

I think that the hardest part about this new lifestyle change will be me eating healthier. I need to really cut back on the junk food! So, I need to figure out a good way to control that but it can't be cutting it out completely because then I will just cheat all the time. Any suggestions?? Please let me know.