WORDLESS WEDNESDAY...well, almost

This is my spunky little Bethany. Please pray for her as she will have eye surgery tomorrow. I will update you all then!

This, That, and Everything Else

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!

Doing what it takes to stay at home

My greatest joy in this life is my children. I desire with all that I have in me to train them to be a Godly young man and woman. I desire to be able to raise them myself and to be here at home with them as much as possible. This is not an easy task in this day and age though, you know? It is difficult, at best, to be home with your kids and have one income and be able to pay all the bills and meet all the needs of everyone in the family. Even though it is difficult, I believe I have the talent and resources to make this staying at home thing work!

This all being said, I would like to share with you what I have been doing from home and I would LOVE for you to share with me any ideas and thoughts that you have that have enabled you to stay at home with your children. As I have mentioned before, I love to sew. My heart is really into sewing little girls items and baby items. I love to make cute little girl dresses, pillow case dresses, pants and shirts for little girls. I also make hot and cold therapy packs for migraines and other aches and pains. These packs are sooo wonderful and I use them for much more than aches and pains! Have you heard of Boppy nursing pillows for the nursing mother? It is one of those big hit items that came out several years ago as a way to make a baby and mother more comfortable as they bond through feedings. For these pillows, I have begun making nursing pillow covers. Guess what else I have been asked to sew? I have been asked the make some doggy diapers! I never thought I would ever make a diaper for dogs! HA! I try to sell my sewing stuff on Ebay.com and a handmade items website called etsy.com. I would love for you to look me up sometime and take a look at my things. Offer insight and wisdom and I would LOVE for you to please share with others the website I share with you. Word of mouth works GREAT!!!

I will say this, as a disclaimer: I know staying at home with your kids is sometimes not able to be done. I know that bills have to be paid, needs have to be met, so I am not saying that women can not work outside of the home or that they should not at all. I even took a year after my daugther was born and I HAD to go back to work to help meet the needs and pay the bills. I am just trying to think outside of the box and encourage others to think outside the box, because for me, I believe I can stay at home if I use all of my valuable resources!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/melliehodges

Really funny story...about a neti-pot

Okay, Friday morning I woke up with a TERRIBLE allergy attack. I hadn't had one this bad in such a long time. My face was swollen, it hurt to talk and my sinuses were pounding me with pressure. So, I got in the car and went to the store looking for some serious relief. Now, I have been told about the neti-pot before by those who swear by it. It is supposed to irrigate your sinuses and make you feel all better. So, I came home with this new contraption. I have always been kind of icked out by the thought of using a neti-pot. Heck, I hate to even blow my nose, let alone, talk about it! It has just been real gross to me. So, I set up to use this contraption and man, did it work! I almost felt a little "high" after the first time I used it. I went from being clogged up, not able to breathe and in pain to being able to breathe better than I had in months! The pressure was gone and I felt liberated!

So, on to the funny part of this post...I was on the phone with someone who will remain anonymous for the sake of, well, anonimity [how's that for originality!]. I told her about my new found freedom and how great I was feeling. I asked her if she had ever used a neti-pot. She went on to tell me a similar story about being in pain with sinuses and seeking relief and turning to the neti-pot. So, she used the neti-pot and said when she did, she thought that there would have been way more fluid coming back out the other side of her nose, but there wasn't. She said that she blew her nose afterwards and that she felt some relief, but that it was really weird that not more fluid came back out. So, later on the same day, this friend had a chiropractic appointment. She said she got settled face down on the adjustment bench and the chiropractor gave her an adjustment and that when he did, the remaining fluid practically flew out her nose. Now, I may just be an icky person, but I found this so hilarious! I have been laughing about it all day. Can you imagine this whole scenario??? It has really just made my day and keeps on making me laugh out loud!

Speak the Truth in Love

Most of you who know me, and know me fairly well, know that I am not an outspoken person. You know that I tend to shy away from arguments, conflict and disagreements in general. You know that I prefer, almost more than anything, to keep the peace and make everyone happy. This past month I have found myself speaking out against things I normally would just shy away from. Things that I would normally just let each person have their own opinion and viewpoint about and simply agree to disagree. I have found myself in some heated and some not so heated discussions on varying topics. In the end I have been left to wonder if I should have ever said anything at all. Should I have spoken up and added my two cents, or should I have just shut up and not worried one bit about what was being said? Well, I won’t bother you with any of the details of the arguments, but there were three in particular that were controversial and I found myself not being able to stay quiet. One of the discussions I particularly struggled over whether or not to speak up. I actually prayed on and off all day and recalled to mind Psalm 19:14 many times, then toward the end of the day, I did decide to speak up. I am glad I did. It was regarding a subject that is near and dear to me and has affected my family and others around me, so I spoke my mind and tried to encourage others. My two cents may not have had a significant affect on anyone but me. I realized that it is okay, and even good, to speak up and even encourage others to seek the One who is Holy and seek to magnify Him and Him alone. Speak the truth in love, dear friends. If you can’t speak the truth in love, it is better to keep your lips sealed and not damage yourself and the friendships and acquaintances around you.

Psalm 19:14
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.

Hoarder???

AFter reading a friends FaceBook status this week, I went on-line to www.aetv.com and watched a couple of episodes of a show called Hoarders. I had watched a couple of these shows here and there over the past few months, but when I watched a couple of the shows on line, I have seriously begun to look around my house and have some very small inside panic attacks. Here's my thing...I like a place for everything and everything in its' place, whereas, my husband likes a place for everything all over the place...no kidding! I am a neat freak. I like countertops to be free of clutter, nothing but the crock pot and some bananas on top of the fridge, nothing on top of the microwave, and my goodness, I hate to use my kitchen table as a catch all! On the opposite end of the spectrum, my DH views ALL of the aforementioned spaces as useless wasted space, and frankly, since I can't beat him at it, for the most part, I join him at his game. Then, when I start to have these little panic attacks [I use this phrase so lightly, basically it is just disgust at the way things look that make me upset, so not real panic attacks], I drive my husband nuts making mad dash sweeps through the house thowing out this, storing that and arguing with him about what needs to be put away and what doesn't. So, when I watch this show, I totally do not understand the hoarder mentality. I will give to you that it is a mental disorder...the people on the show are just plain crazy...but I think I have a little OCD on the opposite end of the spectrum. I am an organize it junkie who just can't get organized. Do any of you mothers feel that way? I have two small kids, 3 and under, I babysit 9 hours a day two other small kids, 4 and under, then I have my big baby, my DH, who I would not trade for anything in the world. I just can't keep up, so I give in to the pressure and usually end up with a messy house most of the time. I will say this, though...watching the show has made me make a huge pile of things for my hubby to take to the basement when he wakes up! Happy fall to all, and get rid of your junk!!!

Some of my sewing creations...

Here are just a few of the dresses I have been working on. I love to sew and these are so simple and cute for little girls!


This was an apron for a cousins little girl. I love the fact that it doesn't pull at the neck, but wraps around and ties at the waist.



I have been trying to add a few embellishments to the dresses I make so they all don't look just alike. I pratty much specialize in the pillow case dresses because they are so easy to make and soooo cute!