Breakfast: Oatmeal with Brown Sugar, Raisins and Cinnamon
Lunch: Leftovers
Dinner: Lentil and Collard Greens Soup  and French Baguette

TUESDAY
Breakfast: Cereal and Fresh Peaches
Lunch: Baked Macaroni and Cheese with Baby Carrots
Dinner: Spinach and Mushroom Quesadillas (with some revisions) with Salsa and Sour Cream

WEDNESDAY
Breakfast: Banana Bread and Cinnamon Applesauce
Lunch: Leftover BBQ Chicken Pizza with Cucumber Sticks
Dinner: @ a friend’s house (bringing this Tres Leches Cake for dessert!)

THURSDAY
Breakfast: Cereal Bars and Fruity-Spinach Yogurt Smoothies
Lunch: @ a friend’s house
Dinner: Vegetable Lasagna (with some revisions) with Sister Schubert’s Rolls and Salad

FRIDAY
Breakfast: Cinnamon Raisin Bread with Peanut Butter
Lunch: Baked Potatoes and Steamed Broccoli
Dinner: Brown Bag Burritos with Toppings and Corn and Black Bean Salad and Homemade Brownies

SATURDAY
Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs and Toast
Lunch: PB&J Sandwiches with Goldfish and Mandarin Oranges
Dinner: Leftovers

SUNDAY
Breakfast: Pancakes
Lunch: Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Baby Carrots
Dinner: @ La Fiesta del Pueblo in Moore Square

So, I am thinking that this particular memory goes in that category of “so-extremely-scary-at-the-time-but-so-completely-hilarious-later”.  What do you think, Autumn?  Well, besides a few shed tears and some elevated heart rates this morning, my birthday has been off to a great start so far!  Thank you, dear friend.  I love you!  Can’t wait to continue our tradition of strawberry pickin’ next year…just maybe at different, turkey-free farm.

It was worth the lack of sleep though.  I only get to see my family once or twice a year.  We had a great time!  Love you, Mommy and Jonathan.  Thanks for visiting!

How blessed I am to be “Mommy” to my two sweet and funny boys!  Mother’s Day is always a good opportunity to sit down and think about all the ways in which being a mother brings me so much joy…

• God gave me my two boys with their specific personalities.  I think it is SO CRAZY how different my two boys are, but yet I can love them both.  JL with his tender heart and his love for reading and Caleb with his comical spirit and his love for all things round.  JL loves to sleep and eat, but Caleb struggles with both of those areas (which means more gray hairs and fine wrinkles around my eyes for me).  JL with his fair, white skin and hazel eyes…Caleb with his darker, olive-colored skin and eyes blacker than my own.  It takes a little while to draw JL out of his shell and get him to open up, but anyone can read Caleb because he pretty much wears his emotions on his sleeve.  They are unique…the way God made them to be.  How fun it is to see their little personalities unravel over time!
• Being a mom serves to sanctify me.  The Lord has used motherhood to reveal to me sins in my heart…anger, discontentment, selfishness, impatience, and self-centeredness are only a few of them.  I am thankful for sleepless nights, waves of constant disciplining, tight budgets, constant clutter and endless piles of laundry.  For one, they PROVE that I a mother of two kids, but secondly, I have LEARNED that through these hard things, God is teaching me what it means to put others before myself.  Sometimes I can do it with a joyful heart and sometimes I can’t, but we’re all a work in process, right?
• I love being a mom with Ben by my side as the leader of our home.  He works HARD to do well at all things handed to him and parenting is one area in which he certainly excels.  I enjoy watching him patiently train JL to be a man of self-control, courage, servant-heartedness and bravery.  I love watching him do the icky things like cleaning out poopy cloth diapers, but still with a smile on his face.  The giggles he can solicit from the boys by tackling, tickling and wrestling with them are absolutely priceless.  Ben has had such a huge hand in forming what our family looks like and I am so thankful!
• I have learned that people are more important than things, which has brought me much joy.  Being at home with the boys means that we have less money to go all around, but IT IS WORTH IT!  Stylish clothing, trendy furniture, regularly eating out are itty, bitty luxuries compared to the value I have found in being at home with the kids.
• I love that my boys are my constant companions (for now…until they are embarassed to be seen hanging out with me).  We do Harris Teeter Triples together, we cruise around Target and look at shoes, we check out books at the library, we go to the park, we do chores around the house, we sing songs and giggle together…and the list keeps going.
• They teach me about Jesus, day in and day out.  How much I need Jesus, how much they need Jesus and how much the Gospel can enrich our lives and our relationships.  JL always thanks God in his prayers how He will never leave us or forsake us…so true!

I am so grateful that God has given me two great little boys to train up in the righteousness of the Lord and that He equips me to carry out such a daunting task.  Praise be to God, the Giver of Life!

Thank you, Dana, for these pictures taken at church!  I will end on this note…here’s a picture of an artistic masterpiece by my husband and boys!

Did you see JL’s coloring job?  I like how he colored in his own eyeballs.  Kinda demonic-looking, huh?  Ben suggested he NOT color in anyone else’s eyeballs.  JL happily agreed.

Caleb pointing at the skeletal remains of a whale hanging from the ceiling.

Toady-toad.

There were a gazillion snakes at this exhibit.  Personally, I found it terrifying.

$40 worth of groceries for the 1st week in March

$25 worth of groceries for the 2nd week in March

I also had to pick up $6 worth of groceries at SuperTarget, but didn’t take a picture of it.  So good, so far.  We still have $104 left in the grocery budget.

You will be hearing more from us now.  The absence of blog posts was due to my own coming down with the flu.  When I wasn’t resting or sleeping, I was still trying to keep up with taking care of my husband and kids and accomplishing a minimal amount of housework.  Hopefully you will be hearing more from me, but maybe not as much since I am trying to get caught up on everything else that fell by the wayside.

Thank you to those who were praying for us and loving on us by bringing us meals and just calling.  We are so blessed to be surrounded by people from our church who are so quick to serve.

Anyway, a few updates…

• February was a short month, so we were able to come in under our $175/month food budget.  I am hoping that this will the be first of many months we can do this!
• One of our new financial goals for this year was to aggressively pay off my student loans totaling $10,000.  We have been able to cut that in half!  Praise be to God who has blessed us with a hefty tax return and side-job opportunities for my hubby.  We’ve been able to throw that extra income toward our school debt.
• Our house is actually FOR REAL being built now, so we are looking to move into our first home in about 90 days.
• Ben has been juggling his many responsibilities well and even managed to get Google Analytics-certified amidst his crazy schedule.  Yay, husband!
• Homeschooling has been going well for Joshua Lee and I.  He is now able to read most of his board books out loud and is eager to tackle hard words like “extinguisher” and “xylophone.”  My oldest loves to read!
• Caleb is becoming more and more verbal.  A few new words he says are: “ight” for “light”, “moo” for “moon”, “nana” for “banana”, and  “di-pah” for “diaper”.  He is such a little ham and he loves to be funny.
• We have lots of visitors lined up who are flying in to visit with us starting in mid-March through the beginning of May.  The Mellings, my mom and my brother, my sister and then my dad…we love it!

That’s it for now.  Come back soon for more blog posts of my grocery shopping trips, meal plans, pictures of my coupon binder, etc.

Ingredients:

• 2 pie crusts (I make mine from scratch because it’s so much cheaper and yummier that way)
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/3 cup chopped onion
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 1 and a 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2 and a 1/2-3 cups chicken/turkey
• 2 cups frozen mixed veggies, thawed (I usually do a veggie medley of peas, corn, carrots and green beans)

Directons:

• Line pan with 1 pie crust.
• Melt butter over medium heat.  Add onion  and cook until tender.  Add flour, salt and pepper (sometimes I throw in some other type of chicken-y seasoning to spruce up the filling); stir until well-blended.
• Gradually stir in broth and milk, cooking and stirring until bubbly and thickened.
• Add chicken and mixed veggies; mix well.  Remove from heat.
• Spoon mixture into crust-lined pan and top with 2nd crust.  Seal the edges and flute.  Cut slits into top crust (and decorate with leftover crust, if you’d like…).
• Bake until golden brown in a 425 degree oven for 30-40 minutes.  Let stand 5 minutes.