taking the good with the bad

You know that saying you have to take the good with the bad? Some times I wonder if I understand it. Times right now are bad and they are going to get worse. Am I saying we are doomed or that the world is coming to an end? NO, I am just wondering if maybe we need to change our perspective or atleast attitude about how the world is rapidly deteriorating around us.
I get so wrapped up in all of the bad stuff that is going to happen, if Justin gets layed off again. I wonder how we will get through it. We have a huge house payment now and we have a new truck payment as well and I can't imagine the burden Justin must feel. The weight of it must be overwhelming. When I think about this I think of all of my friends that are facing very similar situations, with little to no work on the horizon. My heart is Heavy.....

Justin and I have been through this before, "it was the best of times and the worst of times".
It was right after Christmas 2001. He was layed off and we were new to the whole world of unemployment, and everything that goes with it. We had a 2 year old and 4 year old at the time. With Justin being home, I ended up doing some substitute teaching, and Justin got a few little jobs but there were so many people out of work.

At that time Justin and I had not been attending any church and we were asked by Justin's brother to go to church and Justin was asked to join the praise team as a bass player. We never understood God's provision for us at the time but this was the beginning of a hundred blessings. In this church we found a family, so many of them showed us love in incredibly generous ways. There was a gentleman there who would often walk up to Justin out of the blue and give him money. It was generally done in a secret handshake sort of way. Then there were all of the people who offered him a job of some sort. And Ruth's Kitchen was always a blessing, Justin woould go to the church to see what food was available. There was even a time when we were out of dog food and I was so worried. When Justin got to ruth's kitchen there was a bag of dog food the same brand our dog ate and no one else wanted it. So many times I only had to think God what are we going to do? And Every single time the need was provided for.

Justin went through about 3 years of lay offs with little work inbetween. At one point he worked at Dugway for 6 months then he was layed off again and when that happened it was like a serious depression descended upon us for a couple of weeks. How could this be happening again we thought.

I want to let you know I would not have traded that time for anything. Justin was able to see first hand what it was like to have the kids around 24/7 and have to deal with all of the things that come up in any given day. He started doing the dishes and laundry and generally helping around the house. His relationship with the kids really deepened in a way that I don't believe was possible if he had been working. We were able to grow closer by spending quality time together. There were so many days where we did not have anything else to do but enjoy each others company. We did alot of things on the cheap. Suddenly going to the park was not such a bad option. we always wanted to do something more fun but what became important was us having fun with out spending any money. We found creative ways to entertain ourselves. We did not rent movies we made due with the video games we had or what was on free tv. Life in a way seemed so much simpler......

Undoubtably that was the hardest time financially for us but it gave us so many things to be thankful for that we would have otherwise taken for granted.

I want to let you know that we are praying for you, we are worried about you and we love you.
Let us know if there is anything that we can help you with..... ANYTHING!!!! Sometimes we live in a season of giving and other times we live in a season of receiving. By far I think the Season of Receiving is the hardest to accept... Justin and I are praying hard that we can stay working, But we give that to God and let him be in control. In the mean time let us help you if we can.... Jeremiah 29:11 Bears repeating, as does
Luke 12:22-29.

the unexpected window covering

A few weeks ago Justin came to me and said he had a great idea for curtains for Ashton's room.

WHA???

Ok so he got my attention with that statement..... Justin would rather die a thousand deaths than to go into a store like Linens n Things. He wants nothing to do with the home decor other than to tell me that I can't paint a tree on the wall or paint the house rumpus room colors.

That being said I was thoroughly intrigued by the thought that Justin had been thinking about curtains. hmmmm..... interesting what else does he think about?

Ok so here is his big idea and providing Ashton liked it, it would be a go.

He said "we have a box of those emergency military blankets we bought along time ago, I was thinking they would be really cool for a boys room."

(I am going to really work hard here to get the rest of this story right as I am clueless to the world of electrical supplies!)

Then he said, "If I cut some slits in the top of the blanket and thread some conduit through those slits, I will have a curtain rod, then I can attach them to the wall with uni-strut straps." (Bear with me I don't know a uni-strut strap from a tie wrap.....)

I thought that this would be a really great idea and it would also insulate his window on cold winter nights. Now did Ashton like the idea? Yes he did he thinks they are really cool he likes the military look it gives to his room.

The best part is that it did not cost us a dime we had all of the stuff to do it just hangin' around in the basement and the shed. Will I let him give the same window treatment to our bedroom? Not a Chance.....

But I guess if Justin ever gets layed off he can go into interior design!

me and him.....photos of us

We don't have any family potraits can you believe it? Justin and I aren't the type that just go and pay for a sitting and have our photos taken. We do like the photo booths where you can get a strip of 4 tiny black and white photos and you act all goofy, only problem is that we are too cheap to drop our money into the machines. Any how I have been bothered by the fact that the only photos we really have together are when we go to something formal and someone else takes the photos and they always turn out horrible, I have my mouth open, my eyeballs are pointed in different directions or I am looking at the sky instead of the photographer, stuff like that.

We learned along time ago that the best photos that we take are the ones where you hold the camera out away from yourself and take the photo all by yourself. For some reason they always turn out soooo good. I have been telling Justin next time we get ready to go out somewhere lets take a few photos. I need some for my profiles etc... well we have put it off and put it off. Friday night we went to Christa and Jesse's house to hang out for a while. We had a great time but before we went out I made us have a photo shoot. We took all of 3 photos and 2/3 of them turned out really great.

This only happens when you have the zoom on and you don't know it. Otherwise it would have been a great shot of us. Here you just get my eyeball!!!!

Sometimes there are consequences of being a "lazy mom"

Today I told the kids that I wanted them to do all of their laundry. I did not want to see a stitch of dirty laundry in their rooms. I had to do a bit of work and I needed them to be occupied....
When I returned home I found that Ashton had a surprise for me. His favorite hoodie the one he got for his birthday it is a creamy white color. Well, WAS a creamy white color. Now it is pink, pink, pink! Not only is his hoodie pink so are all of his underwear and socks. I told him he is supposed to wash those separately. Any how they got thrown in with the rest of the colored laundry. I asked what he washed that was red and he said alot of things, but specifically his new red shirt from Egypt.

Well there you go!

Elyssa said " I guess Egypt got the curse of the pink underwear on him"

wish me luck I am going to try to use bleach but I am skeptical.....

Are you a CRAZY mom or a LAZY mom?

I came upon a blog that was called "I'm a lazy mom" (I will put a link at the bottom) any way on the side of the blog it asked "what the heck is a lazy mom? find out if you are one." I admit I knew that if I went to this site I would find out that I truly am a lazy mom and was I prepared to deal with the reality of that? So any way I happened on this article and I am so happy to find out that I really am a lazy mom.... Read this article and you will see why.


Are You Crazy or Lazy?
Lookie what I found out there floating around the internet...
Here are ten ways that you can tell if you are a "crazy" mom or a "lazy" mom:

1. A "crazy" mom spends every night gathering together the things her children need for the next day. Then, she proceeds to pack their backpacks and lunches. A "lazy" mom spends some concentrated effort in training her kids to be responsible for their own things and to help pack the lunches. Then she will never have to pack a backpack again.

2. A "crazy" mom does everyone's laundry. Then, she spends hours folding it and putting it away. A "lazy" mom teaches her children to do their own laundry. When her children are toddlers, she teaches them to fold washcloths. By the time they are 7 or 8 years old they are doing their own laundry and she never has to do it for them again.

3. A "crazy" mom cleans her whole house herself, every week. A "lazy" mom trains her kids to do the cleaning. If she has many children, she won't have to do any of the regular cleaning herself.

4. A "crazy" mom goes through her house, picking up glasses, dishes, shoes, dirty socks, and toys, in an effort to keep the house clean, in spite of her children. A "lazy" mom calls the child to pick up after him/herself. She will even resort to dishing out extra chores to kids who won't stop leaving messes around. Her goal is to never have to pick up after her children again.

5. The "crazy" mom encounters an overflowing trash can and takes it out herself. The "lazy" mom has assigned one of her children to be in charge of trash and calls him/her to take it out. She even has a child to take out the recycling.

6. A "crazy" mom cooks a wonderful dinner, sets the table, serves the meal, clears the table, and does the dishes herself. A "lazy" mom has a cook's helper, a table setter, and a server. She sits down and enjoys her meal. The dishwashers take care of the cleaning and the washing. Who are these helpers, you may ask? Why, her children, of course. She took the time to train the children to do these chores and then assigned the jobs to them.

7. A "crazy" mom drives her children to sports, lessons, meetings, and more. A "lazy" mom arranges her life to stay home as much as possible. She limits her children's outside activities to one, or at most two, outings a week. She finds that she and the kids are happier at home and many special projects get finished.

8. A "crazy" mom often feels taken for granted and may begin to resent her family's dependence on her. A "lazy" mom is free to do little things for her kids, out of love, and to honor them. Things she used to feel she had to do, now become thoughtful favors for the ones she loves.

9. A "crazy" mom may find her children are not equipped to face adult responsibilities when they leave the nest. A "lazy" mom can rest in confidence that she helped build maturity in her children and gave them the skills they needed to build strong families of their own.

10. The "crazy" mom loves her kids and is just doing what she thinks she should. I hope she reads this article, and starts being a little "lazy". The "lazy" mom, well, I guess she isn't really "lazy" at all, just smart.

Note: © Copyright 2001 Theresa Gibson

I found this blog by going to CWO or Christian Women Online, they have a blog roll that you can join and it is by alphabetical order. It is definitely interesting......I plan on visiting often.
http://www.christianwomenonline.net/issue/category/blogroll/

Baby it's cold outside......

It is soooo cold out there and it is icy and not much fun to check the mail any more...... I long for spring!!!

So how do you burn off some childhood energy when it looks like this outside? Mind you this is not just snow, but it came with 6 degrees for a low and 17 degrees for the high, way too cold for me to let my kids go out. Any way if I did they would have been out for less than 10 minutes and they would have trampled into my kitchen a foot of snow, I would have been dealing with frostbite victims who would be sure they were going to lose their fingers cuz' "they hurt so bad mom, I think I need hot cocoa"..... that I am going to waste 2/3 of. Right! Well I did not let them out and they survived being stuck in doors. They decided to try their luck at target practice in the living room. First things first load your weapon!

Ready.......... Aim......... Fire.........

It kept them entertained for a while and Justin even got in on the fun!

This is infinitely better than when the kids decided a couple of weeks ago to purchase dollar store bow and arrows. I was not worried a bit. If the kids wanted to spend their cash on a stupid piece of plastic that doesn't even work, so be it. What I did not count on was that they might could work....hmmmm. Next time I will be a little more on my guard. The first sign that they worked was when Ashton shot an arrow into my Christmas tree, It went straight through a glass ornament shattering it. Imagine his surprise that it actually worked, and now he had a mess to clean up! After that I banned Bow and Arrow Fun in the living room. Fortunately they only lasted a couple of days. I do approve of target practice in the living room, I think it is great fun, well it looks fun anyway. I might have to get in on the action next time!!!

Christmas celebrations...

We had a really great Christmas! On the 23rd Justin's brother Kyle and his beau Andy came into town for a visit. I was so excited to see them, I could hardly wait till they got here. We ended up being able to spend a couple of hours with them that night. The next night, Christmas Eve we spent with Kyle, Andy and Justin's parents just visiting for a bit. My kids really loved their Uncle Kyle and Uncle Andy. Kyle and Andy left early Christmas morning to St. George. Christmas morning was great we slept in a little bit and we were up around 9am and then we opened gifts. A little later Grandma and Grandpa came over to let the kids open their gifts. Then we headed to John and Marisa's to exchange gifts with them. Next we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house and Grandma made us some Norwegian omelets they were so good! Finally we headed over to my mom's house to exchange gifts with them and then we spent the rest of the day hanging out there. We had a great Christmas dinner and lots of fun playing video games and visiting.

My mom gave Justin a hoody it is the first one he has ever had and he looks really good in it. She made a quilt for our bed and it is really beautiful. It came with a brown bed skirt. John and Marisa gave us brown sheets that match perfectly.

The kids got the things they really wanted the most. Ashton ended up with Legos and more Magnetix. Elyssa ended up with a new dinosaur that is huge.... She named him Rocky

She also got a terydactyl and a triceratops and then my mom got her a set af small dinos that matched the big ones we got her. It is funny how they all came in different sets. Now she has families....

The best day of this celebration for me was the day after Christmas. Justin and I spent the entire day together. It ended up that we really just focused on each other and spending lots of quality time with each other. Well we did have errands to run, First we had to go down and start the refinancing paper work for our house. Can you believe we are going to refi' from 6.25% to 5% or lower we have only lived in our home for 7 months but rates are really incredible right now. Next we went to IKEA and I promised him we would go through the store really fast. We went to get my new mirror. It is really big about 72 inches long by 37 inches wide and it weighs 66 lbs. I really fell in love with this mirror when I saw it a few months ago. And it was a steal at $99.00!!!

After that we went to the bank to pay off my car.... YIPEEE!!!! Then we went to a few pawn shops treasure hunting. Actually Justin was looking for a certain guitar he really wanted. We did not find it at a pawn shop so we ended up going to Guitar Center. We found exactly what he was looking for there. He purchased a Gibson Studio Les Paul Cherrywood guitar. It is really pretty and it sounds soooo nice. I really love the sound that comes out of that thing. After all of that shopping and driving in the really bad weather and awful roads we came home for a bit before having dinner and then going out again to walmart to look for brackets for my mirror. So even though it seemed like a long day of never ending driving and shopping I have to say the time we spent together made me completely euphoric. I can't tell you how much I love being with that man!!! This was the best day of the whole Christmas season. There was no stress, no drama, no problems..... just fun stuff. I hope you all had a really great Christmas and at least one day where you could just enjoy some down time.

Loves, S