GIVEAWAY

my friend DANA has a giveaway on her blog. in this world of everything artificial will cause you harm and probably causes cancer, it's a great giveaway. i have slowly but surely been changing my cleaners out (meaning i'm not throwing out something that is full b/c i am that cheap. but when it runs out, it'll more than likely get replaced with vinegar.) however, there is a company with natural products giving a $25 gift. so go...comment. tell her i sent you and that that should count as another vote for me too!!


wanna know how i know dana? we met in college. she was dating a great guy who was basically like a brother to me. at the time, he had NOT quite settled down. i didn't realize anyone had come with him to devotional that week and i asked who his "flavor" was that week. yeah. she was sitting behind me. {{blush}} but she loved me enough that she asked me to sing at their wedding. and it was the first time i said yes. considering my stage fright, we were even. love you dana!!

confession

mainly because i would like your opinions. and i'll take them as only that. opinions. we know what they are like, right? anyway, here is the deal. i don't allow my boys to keep toys or books in their room. they own them, but i don't let them keep them inside. and here is why. BOYS ARE BORN WITH THE NATURAL INSTINCT FOR SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST AND ARE COMPLETELY TERRITORIAL AND ANYONE WHO TRIES TO ENCROACH ON SAID TERRITORY, WILL HAVE A HIT PUT ON THEM, OR THE OBJECT IN QUESTION. it is on their DNA code to destroy anything not nailed down.

there. i said it. i'm not a boy. i don't get boys. i think men should stay home and have to raise little boys. you know...it takes one to know one. that kind of thing. i know things are just things and toys are just toys, but it infuriates me beyond belief to buy something, only for it to be torn up that same day. no amount of discipline or teaching on how to take care of things seems to get through. (i'm sure some of your girls do it too, and you think i am terrible by talking about and blaming so much on the boys, but i can't compare them yet. and this is my blog, so i get to make my generalization.) i am so super mad at the cavewoman who thought it would be so much more civilized if her caveman could pee inside (or was it the woman who started going inside as to not get bitten on an exposed tush and the man came in and peed all over the floor in attempts to mark his territory??) anyway, tangent...here is the deal. a long time ago, i put a chain lock on the closet door in the bedroom because when they boys would strow toys every-stinkin'-where and then refuse for a whole day to clean them up (after repeated attempts at discipline), it was easier to put the offenders--the toys--in timeout than to repeatedly put him/them in. (and timeout isn't my sole choice of discipline...i'm just saying). and so when i had had enough, and people were old enough to reach said lock, i started loading them up in bins and taking them out to the garage. you know kids, they use toys as weapons, as stools...for most anything that it wasn't it's original intended use. DRIVES ME A LITTLE NUTTY. we are not rich. we don't have money to rebuy and i do my best to teach my kids how to treat/respect their/others' stuff. we don't have a play room (YET, BECAUSE FOR SOME REASON THAT HAS YET TO BE REVEALED TO ME, GOD HAS DECIDED TO KEEP US IN THIS HOUSE FOR ANOTHER YEAR...I DON'T RECALL PRAYING FOR PATIENCE) so what we have either has to be in their room--which they have proven needs to be a no-no, or outside. and outside is the current situation. but outside isn't ideal. so what's a mom to do? be content with going crazy? get rid of it all and become minimalists? stop doing laundry and turn that into a play area? just give up and let them have the living room? oh, and they love to play dress up. and while they have plenty of costumes, they started to get into all of their regular clothes. so those are now designated to other closets. am i expecting too much? (it's okay if you say yes.) i'm not expecting robots. just for them to take care of what they have and put it up when they are done. (i guess that is too much.)

ok. enough on that. can i ask for your help on something completely different? i have akward windows in the 2 front rooms of our house. (i have no really current full pics, but i think you get it.) how do i decorate these windows?

this was luke's room before he got a roommate. the sun comes in pretty strongly in the mornings, hence the need for the half moon cut outs (unless you tell me something to do to block it other than custom blinds, which ain't happening.) they are 6 feet in length and atrociously wide...like 84 inches i'm thinking. there is trim all around the windows and between the top of the window and the moon window, but no trim/moulding vertically between the windows.anyway, help me. it obviously doesn't have to be anything pre-made and i prefer to make something on my own...i'm just not sure what. another problem...i'd kind of like them to open and close. but if it's pretty enough, i can get over function. i mean, i already said i wasn't a boy.

praying for stellan

pray for this little fella again. he needs it so. click on the button and follow his mama as it unfolds. hit your knees.

thankful thursday

i am thankful that i serve a faithful and forgiving God. if i didn't, there would be no hope.

i am thankful that my monica is pregnant. for some, the road to a family is a bumpy one. but again, my God is faithful.

i am thankful that while we are cramped, we have a roof over our heads. it fills our needs and we have no problem affording it.

i am thankful that my children are happy and healthy and brilliant. each child is exactly what i wanted and needed to make me who i am and to make me whole.

i am thankful that my husband has a job and is such a wonderful provider for us. we never go without and we often have more than we need. he always comes home from hard days full of love and time to give each of us. he is exactly what i need.

i am thankful that we have family that we love and who love us. i wish we could spend more time with them.

i am thankful for my new job. i haven't even started yet, but i am soooo greatful to have an outlet for my nursing brain that will also allow me to be home. no guilt, no babysitters, and wiggle room in the budget. who wouldn't be completely thankful for that??

i am thankful for the blogosphere. without it, i may not be who i am now. with it, i can have a better chance at becoming that proverbs 31 woman. i learn more about making our house a home in so many ways. thank you for teaching me how to be better.

trash to treasure::pretty plates

i told you i had been thrifting a good bit lately. i am really learning to see the "bones" of things and figure out how they could work for me. to start with, let me say that i only buy bigger items like furniture (even chairs)if i know exactly where they will go and how i will use them. small things like decorative items, i weigh the option of how i'll use it with the price and if i'll use it seasonally or for something more permanant. all that being said, first up at the plates that are now mirrors. (and unfortunately for you, i'm attempting another tutorial. and if i'm being honest, when i was looking through pictures of what i've been up to, i realized that yet again, i had forgotten to take a picture of the finished project. thankfully, it's not edible and the finished product still exists lol!!)

First, you go to a thrift store and find a plate who's bones you like, but that is otherwise hidioderous.

next, you slap a coat of spray primer and then spray paint on her.

then you bust out your overpriced snooty glue mod podge and some scrapbook paper. trace the circle that is in the middle of the plate from the bottom side. cut it out. turn it to the wrong side of the paper and put a coat of MP on it.

stick it on the plate and add another coat of MP. let it dry until no longer tacky to the touch. then spray it with a coat of polyurethane. i like THIS KIND.

then get your little mirror and hot glue it to the middle of the plate. (the reason i even used scrapbook paper behind the mirror is because the mirrors i bought were too small. but it makes it cuter too, no?)

then stand it on a plate rack in your kitchen to take a picture (because the plate hangers you bought to hang them on sister's wall with were again, too small.) note to self: make appointment with eye doctor because clearly your perception is off.

Tasty Tuesday::back by popular demand

popular as in i think only 1 or 2 said "yes...please bring it back!" the good news is that i took pictures. well, some. i am TERRIBLE at tutorials. i always forget a step or picture. this post is no exception. i got this basic recipe in college. only it included english peas. and harriette has a similar recipe that adds cream of chicken and ranch dressing mix, but no peas. and i also added corn. so is it mine b/c it is tweaked? ah, who cares. it it delish. try it. you can't go wrong. so without further adieu:

Southwest Chicken Spaghetti

What You'll Need:
2 cups boiled/chopped chicken
2/3 box spaghetti noodles boiled in the leftover chicken broth
1 can Rotel
1 can cream of chicken
1 8 oz pkg velveeta
1 small can of corn (oops...not pictured!)
1 pkg dry ranch dressing mix
handful or 2 of shredded cheese

mix together chicken and noodles.

in a saucepan, mix together rotel, cream of chicken, velveeta, corn and dressing mix until everything is melted together.

pour over chicken and noodles and mix thoroughly. spray an 8x8 pyrex dish (warning...it will be FULL!! you can also just do your regular 9x13x2 dish also.) pour in casserole dish.
sprinkle with remaining shredded cheese. cover and bake until bubbly.
serve with salad

and your my favorite dressing that you can get at sam's.

i should probably say hi...

i mean, it's the least i could do, right? i could go one further and tell you what i've been doing, too, huh? well, we had kindergarten camp for luke for a week where he met his teacher and got acquainted with his new school. he LUURRVED it! he is so ready to start and i am completely ready for him to! (the constant fighting that comes from the boys is enough to make me a little crazy most days!!) since our house is off the market, i have also been decluttering/recluttering as it were. meaning some of the boxes i packed (cause i'm dumb), i have unpacked and repurposed some things. i have cleaned out baby toys, done a jillion tons of laundry, rearranged furniture, done tons of thrifting (with only a few finds), have been doing some crafting here and there and bought the boys bunk beds. if we are gonna be here for another year, we need more room. so far so good. no one has gotten pushed fallen off of the top bunk. and little sister...

she has been a sick little pumpkin the last several days. i figured it was gonna be her typical ear infection. well, her ears ARE infected. but she had been running a high fever for a couple of days without it breaking at all. thursday is when we went for the ears. friday i went back b/c she had woken up screaming bloody murder and was on fire. so they sent us for a chest xray, did a urine test on her (poor baby), pricked her finger and gave her a shot of rocephin (and let me just say, when i found out what her white count was today, i was a little freaked out.) and speaking of, we had to go back in this morning to see if her count was coming down and to see if her tt was growing anything. it wasn't growing anything (thankfully, i think) and her white count came down pretty well. so they gave her one more shot and she gets back on her oral antibiotic tomorrow. her fever finally broke friday night about 7. she is getting back to her old self, even though on top of everything, she is trying to cut her molars. my poor angel. a week from monday, we see the ENT to hopefully take care of these ears once and for all. (tubes i'm prayin'!) cause after $75 in copays this week, i am OVAH it!! oh, and i got a job working from home!! it is part time doing telephone triage for different offices/hospitals all around the state. i start training this week and i absolutely can't wait!! i'll set my own hours (which can come in 4,6,8 or 12 hour shifts) at night and on weekends. and the boys got signed up for soccer today. that aught to be fun...or crazy. either one. oh, and we had our NICU Footprints Ministry bag stuffing on thursday night. my friends Kera, Brandy and Farrah came to help out and i can't thank them enough. again, if you can't come, you can always help. just ask me how you can help from afar and i can tell you more.

would you like to know the tragedy in all of this? i have NO pictures to show you. how sad is that? i haven't taken a picture in a few weeks i bet. so i'm gonna dig through and see what i can find to post on here, cause otherwise, this has just been one boring run on sentence. but i have a duty to my public. to bore you to death...or just occasionally say hi in what has become a life a little more hectic than we are used to.

did i ever tell yall i tried to make Darby's petit fours? well, i did. and while they were stinking delicious, i must have used too much heavy cream b/c my icing never would set.

would yall like a menu and a thankful thursday this week? cause i'll try to scrounge that up for you.

MAJORLY HUGE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

MY

MONICA

IS

PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!

folks, we have been praying for this for a long time. how long? i'll tell you...since the very month i became pregnant with ally claire. do you know how hard that was to tell my best friend? really hard. i mean, i already had 2. but this was supposed to happen at the same time. monica is my best friend. she has stared a difficult almost 2 years in the face and with God's promise, she now gets to laugh at it! i can't tell you how stinkin excited i am. monica has been there for me with all of my kids and i owe her something fierce!! i'm glad i'll be able to drop everything and be there for her. i am her on call nurse. and even though that is nothing new in our relationship, i will get to answer fun questions like "is this supposed to be this color" and "did you do this" and "you mean all babies don't come out of the "sunroof??" i just can't wait!!

monica, you are gonna be an awesome mom. being a mom is the most difficult and rewarding job you'll ever have. it will be one that you'll never regret a day in your life. you'll mess up a lot and have to beg for forgiveness. you'll call your own mom, or me and say "come get this kid." (you know it's true cause i do it to you and my mama.) you will also have precious days of first smiles and first steps and first days of kindergarten and "mama, i love you." you deserve this. i love you more than you will ever know. and i am thrilled that you are getting your hearts desire. and i'm also glad i can take advantage of your raging hormones and make you cry. cause i know your are snottin' right now!!

yall, run over to her blog. give her some love. tell i sent ya!!! (and if you want to know why i'm "outing her" on my blog...cause she owes me. she did it to me when i was expecting luke. at least i have permission!!)

NICU FOOTPRINTS MINISTRY

I have been meaning to tell yall about this awesome ministry. First, I'll tell you how I heard about it. Susannah mentioned it on her blog one day. (Other than going to high school together, we also now share the bond of having had babies that were in the NICU.) if you would like to read more about Ally Claire's NICU story, check my June 2008 archives. That's really the best way to tell you b/c there are several posts about it. Or just write "NICU" in that search bar up there. Anywho, after I heard about Footprints, I IMMEDIATELY emailed the lady who started it, told her about our rock star Level III NICU here in Huntsville and asked if there would be any interest in starting a "branch...chapter" up here. And do you know what that God was already doing??? That very day, the same day Susannah posted her story and the same day i emailed Kim, (the founder...her story is here) she had just gotten off the phone with a Mrs. Baraka Truss and they had just gotten the OK to start it up!!! How awesome is that? Better yet, HOW AWESOME IS HE?? So, what in the world is Footprints? Well, you can always go to that link. But I'll tell you. It's something you will want to get involved with. Here is some information (ripped straight from the Footprints homepage):

"The Footprints Ministry is a 501(C) 3 non-profit organization that began in August of 2007 at Heritage Baptist Church. We began serving Baptist South hospital in Montgomery. In December of 2007 we expanded our ministry to Baptist East hospital through the support of Grace Point Church. And we've recently expanded to serving St. Vincent's Hospital in Birmingham and Huntsville Hospital in Huntsville, Alabama, and Shelby Baptist Medical Center in Alabaster, AL. Footprints Ministry distributes gift bags to parents who have a baby admitted into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Baptist East and Baptist South hospitals serve 800 babies per year from 20 surrounding counties. St. Vincent's hospital serves around 350 babies per year. We have distributed over 1500 bags since August of 2007 and will distribute over 2000 in 2009. Each bags contains a Bible, disposable camera(for the nurses to take pictures when the parents can't be there), gift card to local restaurants and stores, burp cloth monogrammed with footprints, a scent blankie with poem attached for the mother to sleep with and return to the baby, travel necessities such as toothbrushes, a prayer request card, klennex, baby magazine, and pens and notepads. Each of these items are very important as most babies are premature and the families are not prepared when the baby arrives. We also do seasonal events like our Santa, Easter Bunny and Mother's Day visit.This ministry has touched the lives of so many families! We've had opportunities to meet with these families and pray with them. We've also made friends through this ministry. Our prayer is that we will share the love of Christ with these families and provide comfort and encouragement to them during the most exciting and difficult time in their life."

and now that I have given you the generics, let me tell you...you never want your baby to be in the NICU. but receiving something like this could totally lift your spirits and help you get through a hard day. the docs and nurses are super fantastic and gifted to work in this area. and they take care of your baby when you aren't able to. they give you all the information you need to know (especially those nurses!!). but sometimes, you need to know that even someone you don't know is thinking about you and your baby. and who better than someone who has been there? who knows the heartache of the NICU? God put my baby there for a reason. I feel drawn to this ministry not only because of my baby, but because of my nursing background. but God tells us to be like little children and to take care of little children. but He also tells us in Hebrews "to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it." (NLT) i like that that translation says "show hospitality". and you know what, i know those are angels we are "entertaining".

so...wanna know how you can be involved?? sure you do! that's why you are still reading! first of all, we always need prayer warriors. pray for the sick babies, for their families, for the doctors and nurses. next, get ready to visit these links:

for specific donations to the bags, click here. for the huntsville area, you don't have to be from here. you can certainly mail anything to me. just email me at btuckerrn(at)att(dot)net for my real address. (scent blankets, disposable cameras, scripture cards, booties, hats, snacks, restaurant gift cards, pens, note pads)...
for the Huntsville unit, we haven't gotten to the fundraisers....YET. but stay tuned. you can also click on the donations page of FOOTPRINTS to make monetary donations. if you live in the Huntsville area, guess what??? you can get in touch with me. my friend Kera is helping out. she is embroidering some burp cloths (thanks Kera!!) wanna do something fun? wanna come help us stuff bags? GOOD!! we are meeting this month on Thursday, July 16th from 6-8 pm in the NICU conference room located on the 3rd floor of HH for Women and Children. We will stuff the bags with the goodies we have collected and distribute them. see...no talent or money needed. just time and hands!! if you have any questions, please let me know. we would love for you to help in any way!