I haven't posted in a while and I do not apologize. The blog takes a back seat whenever we are busy having fun and enjoying life! Let me catch up a bit...
Thanksgiving:
I felt a tremendous need to be with my side of the family for this Thanksgiving holiday. This would be the first Thanksgiving without Dad in our lives and even that thought was tremendously hard for me to bear. Thinking about mom being without Dad was even worse to think about, but we all came together as a family and had a great time at my brother and sister in laws house. The cousins exchanged Christmas presents since we wouldn't be together around Christmas time. A lot of us shared something else...the stomach virus! My poor nieces and sister in law got it first. About 2 days later I woke up to a vomiting son. My poor mom was sick for days. Thinking the illness was over, I made the trek back home to VA, and got sick in the middle of the night. Uugghh! It had been years since I had a stomach virus and I was glad when we were over it and so thankful that Bethany and Danny didn't get sick!
Since Thanksgiving:
We have been busy. Before Thanksgiving I had a terrible toothache that I continued to put off. When the stomach virus was over, I decided enough was enough and visited the dentist. Yep, cracked tooth down to the root...had to be pulled, which was no fun! It was pulled a week ago today and as I sit here and type, I am going through dry socket pain. I have an appt this afternoon to see the oral surgeon again to have the extraction site "medicated and packed". I just want the pain to GO AWAY!!!
The other thing I have been busy with is, frankly, just keeping up with the kids and my home duties. I have really kind of begun again with potty training Josiah. I have pulled out a timer and for the past few days, Josiah has been going potty every time the timer goes off, which I set it for about 20-30 minutes every time. Poor guy wakes up every morning and every afternoon from nap, soaking wet. We have to change the bed sheets everyday, most of the time twice a day. I have limited the amount of fluids he gets a night...no more bedtime milk, but milk and the last of the fluids is served with dinner. Man o'man has this been a long and drawn out process!!! I am beginning to think that Bethany will be potty trained before Josiah at this rate! Ha! Anyway, I will persevere and we will conquer this mountain!
I have taken on a few more babysitting adventures, not every day, but when I am needed. This will assist financially and I have enjoyed having these dear kids with bright, blooming imaginations! They are had to keep up with mentally and physically! They are dear too. It is fun to have them around. Josiah is seeming to feel out of place and unsure of himself. I am just not sure how to help him handle more kids, but I love on him a lot and try to reassure him.
One thing that has taken up an incredible amount of my time is menu planning. Yes, MENU PLANNING! I am trying to have my 2011 menu plans set in stone before the first of the year. I have gotten a lot done, too. Breakfast and lunches were easy to figure out. We will have the same breakfast and lunch menu each week for the entire year. For Dinner, I am trying a wide variety of things. I will be having soup for dinner at least two days of the week during the cold weeks and when it gets warmer, we will be having sandwiches at least twice a week so we might be able to get out and do more in the warmer weeks. I am trying at least one meatless dish each week and one new dish each week. We are trying for a non-monotonous fare. The more engaging the meal, the less likely we will want to go out to eat, which is a major problem for our family. I am keeping a kitchen journal this year so I can keep up with the menu plans and keep up with what my DH likes and doesn't like about the new meals and what I can do to improve for the next year. So, this brings me to another topic....
My blogging New Year's Resolutions:
I want to make things less sporadic, more fun and informational, so here are the changes you will see:
Meal Planning Mondays - will list the weeks meal plans; sometimes I will add recipes, sometimes I will only add recipes upon request
Thanksgiving Tuesdays and Thanksgiving Thursdays: I will share posts of the things me and my family are thankful for
Wordless Wednesdays - I plan to post the cutest picture of the week and let you think what you will
Funny Fridays - we have a lot of funny stuff going on around here - On Friday's I will share the funniest moments of the week.
Saturdays and Sundays will be blog free! Let me know what you think about everything. Do you have any new ideas for blogging in 2011? Let me hear about it!
