Thankful

"Enter His gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name." Psalm 100:4

It's too easy to remember what we're thankful for on Thanksgiving Day and forget about the rest of the days of the year. Isn't it truly something we should put into practice every single day? Yes! Thank you, Lord for all your good and perfect gifts!

May you all have a blessed Thanksgiving Day.

Who Doesn't Love Pumpkin?

Well, we never got around to carving our pumpkins this year. Too bad...I think Georgia would have enjoyed it. But there was too much happening and we were gone the weekend of Halloween, so it just didn't happen.

Not by us, anyway. We started noticing these little critters as they took a very fond liking to our pumpkins. Nibble after nibble started adding up and after awhile, these pumpkins were completely carved through. It started to get a little gross, but the entertainment factor for Georgia was so huge, we couldn't bear to get rid of them. Each morning she would sit in her highchair and watch as the squirrels ate their "beffast" too.

Thank goodness these pumpkins were only $2 each.

Muddy

It's fun to hear Georgia begin talking...and trying to figure out what she's saying. One of her newest terms is "Muddy," and it's usually in reference to Andy. We're not exactly sure where it comes from or it's exact connotation, because she sometimes uses it with different tones and in different contexts. Here are the three possibilities that we think it could be:

1. A quick combo for Mommy + Daddy.
2. "Where's Daddy?" When Georgia wants to know where something is she'll say "Mmmmm....go?" or "Mmmm....Daddy?"; which, when said quickly, sounds like "Muddy."
3. Georgia has very often and very clearly called Andy, "My Daddy" when speaking of him or to him. My + Daddy = Muddy.

We think the last one is the most likely. :)

You Might Be a Pastor's Wife If....

...people are shocked when you know the words to old popular songs.


from You Might Be a Pastor's Wife If...by Kathy Slamp

New Room

It's been about a month since we painted Georgia's new room and moved her across the hall. I wanted to have her completely accustomed to sleeping in her big girl bed before the baby comes. People kept telling me I have until the baby is ready to sleep in his or her crib, but that seems so far away and I didn't want a baby and a toddler adjusting to new sleeping arrangements at the same time.

All in all it's gone very smoothly. Only the first few nights did Georgia ask to sleep in her crib, but we just kept the nursery door shut and moved all her toys over and there really wasn't too much fuss about it. She has only fallen out of the bed twice - and never while she was sleeping. Both times we could hear her talking and playing through the monitor, so we think that before each crash she was standing up. Those, too, only happened in the first couple of days and it hasn't happened since. It's just so funny to me because she used to sleep all over the place in her crib, but hasn't done that since moving to a toddler bed. How do they know what to do?

Anyway, here are some pictures of the new room. I don't have anything up on the walls yet; I'm still trying to come up with some unique decorating ideas. Maybe a collage of some sort....any suggestions?


This last picture is just too funny not to share. I put her on her bed so I could take a picture of the big girl on her big girl bed, but she immediately started crying because she thought I was making her take a nap. She kept saying, "No nite-nite! No nite-nite!"

What a Day

The last few days have been very interesting.

It started on Tuesday morning at my doctor's appointment. I was scheduled that morning to drink the orange drink to check my blood sugar and look for signs of gestational diabetes. At the office they pricked my finger (three times, by the way!) and discovered that I had failed the test. WHAT??? I had done just fine when I was pregnant with Georgia. They told me that I'd have to take a 3-hour glucose tolerance test the next day. It goes something like this:

*Fast overnight for 12 hours. (Might be easy if I didn't wake up at 3 a.m. really wanting to get a midnight snack.)
*Go to the hospital, have blood drawn, drink the orange drink again.
*Wait an hour, have blood drawn.
*Wait another hour, have blood drawn.
*Wait ONE MORE hour, have blood drawn.

I had to do all this without eating ANYTHING. I think total time was 17 hours without food and I was hungry.

Things started to look up at lunch time. Andy took me and Georgia out for a yummy lunch at Old Chicago. Now it was blessed nap time. Not so fast! On the way home we got rear-ended. We were stopped at a stop light and this woman ran right smack into us - HARD. It jolted Georgia awake. Believe it or not, and I still can't, there was no damage to either car. One small hole in our bumper from her license plate and her plate did bend. That was it. I couldn't believe it because, really, I've never been hit in a car that hard before.

So, we had to wait for a police officer to come and yada, yada, yada. You know how it goes. The woman was very nice (poor gal, it was her birthday) and everything went smoothly. Andy's taking the van in today to get checked out just in case, but it looks like we won't have to mess with repairs or insurance.

And now today I've been waiting for the results of that mega-long test. The nurse called just a while ago and.....I'm normal! She said everything looked fine and Tuesday's test had been just barely over in the first place. This is wonderful news - no more finger pricks or blood draws, no dietitian meetings or classes, and no worries about diabetes.

Let's hope today is a little more peaceful.

Laundry Innovations

I'm always looking for ways to save money. At the suggestion of a friend, I have decided to make my own laundry detergent. She told me it only cost about a penny a load and so I had to find out for myself. I am going to keep track of how many loads I do and see if it truly is that inexpensive.

Making it ended up to be very easy (no complaints there!) and it looks like it will last a long time.

Just a cup of each of these three things:


Add 4 1/2 gallons of hot water and voila! This bucket is full of detergent. I still have enough supplies to make this 5 gallon bucket at least 5, maybe 6 more times.

Wanna give it a go yourself? Here's the website: http://www.soapsgonebuy.com/category_s/40.htm Good luck!