Feel the Love

Sometimes when I cook I pour extra love into the dish I am making. I truly feel myself loving my family through the meal I know they are about to enjoy. I might make something that I know is one of their favorites or sautee up some mushrooms for my husband. It is a special treat when one of them says that they could " taste the love" in that dish. Having recently watched Kung Foo Panda, it makes me think of the secret ingredient in the noodle soup.

So, one of my quirks is that I cannot deal with my feet feeling dirty. This usually comes into play right before bed, but sometimes throughout the day, I need clean feet. Also, I dont like my legs to touch, but that is a different issue. Anywho, yesterday C was taking a moment to wash his feet and asked if I would like mine washed. I do have fabulous feet to I obliged him. As I sat there and marveled at this wonderful husband I have I felt extremely blessed. I dont know that he had washed my feet before. He carefully took time to rub my toes as he went and then dried them off so I could put slippers on. Totally felt the love in this simple act. My husband is a mustache rockstar just so everyone knows.

Something fun that we did yesterday was that we went to the park with a blanket and basked in the sun. How often do you do that? We NEVER do it. One of the great things about getting out of the house is that you cannot do work in the house if you are not home. It forced us to relax. We do not do that enough. God has been showing us lately different ways to relax, enjoy him, and to pour into our family. LOVE! When we got home I said, "Where can we go now?" LOL, I am hilarious. But seriously I did not want to be home with the chores that awaited.

Open House Today 1-3

So we have not tried a Saturday open house, thought we would give it a shot. Havent blogged in a while. Do you know how much work it is to keep a house in "show worthy" condition with 3 1/2 kids? Egads!!! I ran around like a mad woman this week with appointments, birthday preparations and just general shopping. Grocery shopping is one of my absolute fav's because it is a justified time of money spending, love!

I am getting big like a house, stink. I had hoped that since I was in such great shape before getting pregnant that my body would cut me some slack this time.....not the way it is happening. Oh well. It is as though my body is in revolt and insists on putting everything back on in a short time frame and then adding more baby weight. Ugh! Oh well, I lose pretty well after baby so I will hope in that. Last time being pregnant so I am gonna go BIG......literally.

TV. Love the show The Voice. C and I have pulled it up on hulu all week and enjoyed watching it again and again. Such talent based soley on the voice, love. C keeps spending money on artists he is coming across and liking. Bless that man, he spends money two and three times before he realizes I am trying to keep us in a budget. Oh well, as my friend says, C'est la vie. Good thing I love him so!

Ok, gonna go get the house ready for the potential buyers! Pray please for our home to sell.

Nuttin' Honey

I dont feel like there has been anything blog worthy to type about lately. We are still trying to sell our home. I am still pregnant. Girls are still in school. Here are some of the things I have been doing: Not going to the club Gearing up for homeschooling next year Keeping my house at an immaculate level of cleanliness (super easy with kiddos! NOT) Staying on top of the laundry Having open houses every 2-3 weeks Spending quality time with the fam in the evening Walking to the mail box alone in the evening with C Letting the girls clean up the kitchen after dinner, LOVE Eating......lots of things, from black licorice to eggo waffles Sleeping a lot Loving that my second trimester hair is being cooperative Operating a cash budget, LOVE Couponing Loving that C is growing a stash, totally hot! Running kids here, there and everywhere Saw my Dani friends new house Visited the state capital with the fam. Got out just in time before someone tried to storm the governors office, eek! Cooking dinners that my family loves! That about sums it up for now. Will write more when I have something witty to say~J~

Waiting

On so many things. Waiting on a buyer, waiting on a move, on a baby. Exciting times really. God is showing me patience, **grumble**. As you may know I usually pray for others to change rather than me to be patient . I have moments where I get anxious and need to do something, but God has brought me back several times to a place of contentment. By no means am I suggesting that I do nothing in the mean time of this "wait", but I have to "prepare the fields for blessing." So that is what I am doing. Just being ready with my house, being a good steward with my resources, and taking lots of time with my family while we wait. Please pray for God to bring our buyer! C and I have been blessed with lots of family time lately. Even when he is working a bunch, we have had our evenings together. The Parkers bought us a wii back in January and wowza, that is where our time has been spent. We recently discovered Mario Kart and have not been watching tv. I like a good criminal show every now and then, but mostly our time has been on the wii I am not gonna lie. C and I are a bit competitive. Rant***winco is full of criminals. Good grief. I like their bulk food bins, but for the love people. Parent Your Children! These are not free sample bins. Get your kids greasy hands out of there. I will not be eating out of there, less black licorice, for some time. Sick! Bad parenting, or not parenting really pushes me over the edge. C had to pull me out of the section as I was patroling the kids coming thru and grazing. Really preterbs me! Then we go to our car and there is a shady guy combing the parking lot. Really? Criminals! C called it in and wouldnt you know, the guys disappeared as soon as the 50 got there. Ugh! Not going to winco.

Teaching Moments

For Christmas my oldest got the movie, "The Princess Bride". A classic really. I grew up on this movie but as for C and I, we parent a little different. Our girls have a tender spirit and 2/3 will most likey cry in a semi-sentimental movie. C's genes for sure! Anywhoo, we watched it as a family over the weekend and it was good. The girls especially love the fairy tale aspect of it, they could have done without the fireswamp scenes, but love seeing the princess rescued by her true love. Well, there is one part in the movie where Fred Savage says, "Jesus!" and not in a praiseful way. This afforded us the opportunity to stop the movie, skip back and talk about using Jesus' name in vain. We had explained this before and here is how the conversation went:

C- We are spesifically told not to use the Lords name in vain.

Alli- What does that mean?

C- Well, you know how some people say , "Oh Poop!" if they get mad?(poop being the worst of the worst for the girls) Some people uses the name of God as a cuss word.

Alli-Some people call God poop?

C-Well, not quite, but you are getting closer to what I am trying to tell you.

So anyway, pausing the movie and revisiting this conversation was good for them. I would rather the teaching grounds be here in our home instead of on the playground somewhere. Now by no means am I suggesting that we start letting the kids watch, Predator or Children of the Corn, like I did when I was their age just to afford the teaching moment, but be on the look out parents for those opportunities. I am encouraged by my husband who often initiates these opportunities and recognizes them as such! I see this as an opportunity to "bring up our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." part of Eph6:4

Ides of March

Havent blogged in a while. I cant say I have been busy doing much else except keeping the house at a whole new level of clean. Constant work with three kids and a hubs. I have been enjoying it thought. It is so much more peaceful to relax in a clean home rather than a home with a bunch of clutter everywhere. TV has not been especially appealing to me as of late. I have been crafting in the evening and really any spare moment I have. I like doing something with my hands. I will have to buy some cheaper supplies though, it gets spendy!
So as you may know, C and I have been operating a cash budget since October. Love it. I have been slacking in a major way with couponing so while we havent been saving much, we also havent been busting our budget. Praise God.
We are having another open house this weekend. Pray for our buyers to come and see the house please! I would love to put this behind us and to move onto getting settled in our new home. I do have peace with it all. Not anxious, just excited to get movin! I know He has our buyers out there and hopefully they will come soon. Open house Sunday 11-1 if interested.
Yesterday was St. Patricks day and as some of you may know, we have one daughter that refuses to play by the rules of conformity. Love that! Each year she refuses to dress in anything resembling green b/c she simply "doesnt want to play that game". What gumption! I love that she doesnt want to do what the rest of the crowd is doing. Be still my heart!

Heaven on Earth

Most wonderful Bed and Breakfast we have ever stayed at was the Cameo Heights Mansion. Wowza. If you ever want a taste of elegance and relaxation head out to wine country Touchet, WA for a relaxing time. Every little detail of this multi million dollar mansion was taken to care. Amazing to say the least. There was a theater room, on site restaurant, wake up service, complimentary s'mores packages, fire pit, hot tub, rain like shower, claw foot jetted tub, the list goes on.

I surprised C with a weekend getaway. The great thing was that I booked this before we started any of the house craziness. It worked out perfectly time wise b/c he just got done being on call and we needed a break from the house prep stuff. Also, I surprised him with dinner at an onsite restaurant called , " The Vine" . We had a four course fondue dinner that was amazing, we had never had fondue before. We were overwhelmed by the extravagant tastes and amounts of food. This could have easily fed four adults. We had to pace ourselves knowing there were four courses total. Amazing to say the least.

Our time there was mainly spent listening to "Decision Point" on CD (Chris) thanks for the audio C-Span Sean Parker, bleck! And as for me, I spent most of my time napping and watching cop shows. Love!