An inexpensive gift idea and a fun recipe!

Two years ago at one of my first MOPS meetings down in Olympia, my mentor mom gave all of us girls at our table a beautifully presented glass jar filled with homemade hot fudge sauce! Now dont be thinking this is something like hershey's chocolate syrup, oh no this is the REAL YUMMY deal! This is the best hot fudge you have ever tasted. It makes the perfect inexpensive gifts for teachers and friends and also a really fun treat for an at home night with your hubby! You can dip strawberries in it or do what I love, make your own peanut buster parfait that takes EXACTLY if not better then DQ. I love to save my old glass jars and fill them up with this, place a piece of cute fabric on top and tie it with a ribbon. Dont forget to give them the recipe because they WILL ask for it! SO here it is:

1 cube of butter

6 squares of unsweetened chocolate

2 cups sugar

1 large can of evaporated milk

1 tsp vanilla

dash of salt

To make: melt butter and chocolate; add sugar & salt, melt sugar. Slowly add milk. Bring to a boil, cook 3-4 min until thick, add vanilla. ENJOY!!

I am learning to be a little more resourceful!

So part of cutting back out spending has meant that I have been learning to be a little more rescourceful. At our MOPS table we came up with the term "Macgyver-ology" which to us meant making something out of little or nothing! There are many ways that I want to become more resourceful, like gifting, cooking and meal planning, couponing etc. Because for now we have more or less cut out restaurants (minus the Groupon for Moctezuma's that I couldn't pass up) I have found myself cooking a lot more than I ever have. I have found huge enjoyment in this because it is actually something that I have been wanting to do more of. One of the first recipes I tried was one for our fav Thai meal, Massaman curry. I figured if we were not going to be going out to get this then I was going to make it. Now keep in mind I learned very quickly after seeing what goes in this that it is not extremely low cal/low fat but works best as an once or twice a month thing. I will post that recipe soon when I have more time, but I wanted to share something that I did today that had me beaming with resourcefulness. I noticed that this huge bag of potatoes that I had bought because it was a cheap was now beginning to go bad. In the past I would have thought oh too bad, I am not making anyhting with potatoes right now so I guess it will just end up going bad, thus turning my cheap 20lb bag of potatos into a waste of money. But now being on my quest to become to resourceful decided to google "freezing potatoes". By the way my freezer has become my new best friend lately...more on that later too. So I got to chopping and here are the instruction for freezing potatoes.

Step 1- cut into slices for what you will use. For me I made mostly fries and also small cubes for soup.

Step 2-boil for a very short period of time until they are 1/2 cooked.

Step 3- lay flat on a foil lined baking sheet, single layered and put into freezer.

Step 4- once frozen put in freezer bags for later use!

I have 3 very full cooking sheets in the freezer right now! I am very pleased with myself. Not only did I rescue my potatoes, I saved money and time for when i comes to cooking with them. I think the main thing so far that I learned about resourcefulness is that it can take a litte more time, effort and planning but it is SO worth it.

I have found my blogs' purpose!

I am so excited to share my blogs' new purpose with all of my friends! Not that the cute pics of my kids and hubby will be eliminated but I have recently felt the tug to start blogging about some decisions that Joe and I have made basically regarding the way that we live. What do I mean by that?.....Well it all started back during this fall (and well really our whole adult lives) that we realized that we were getting increasingly sucked up into idols of this world in SO many ways. We were not being as responsible as we could with our money, our bodies, our family, our time, and so much more. All of these blessings that God was just pouring out on us were not being treasured or sometimes even acklowedged. We were so often being irresponsible with what God had given us, always longing for the "next things," giving in to one indulgence after another, and plain not being the best stewards of the blessed lives we were given. So after a indulgent fall and holiday season our pocket books were thin and my waist was not!..... SO began our January "month of nothing!" So you may ask what is a "month of nothing?" Well basically this is a phrase that we coined back when we were saving money for our adoption. "One" month we decided to save every penny that we could by only buying things that met our basic needs (what a concept huh?) We did not go out to dinner, or starbucks, buy things willy-nilly like new bath mats at target (hey they were on sale) or random items that made us happy for a nano-second....no, it was food, basic toiletries, gas, housing, bills ect. Wow did we save a TON that month. Hmmm you may think that we would have continued this, but no when the month was over we tried to "do good" with our budget, but had no plan and thus did not do very good at all. Now don't get me wrong I am not a shopoholic or a super spender by far but at the same time I left purchasing decisions up to what felt good and what I thought we needed. So come January we realized that things needed to change. Dave Ramsey's words were finally starting to sink in, and so we once again started out "month of nothing" and voila we started saving (a lot!) As we continued this "month of nothing" MON (from now on I will use the acronym after-all we are a military family) I had an epiphany, not only do we need to focus on our budget but we need to take this basic concept and apply it to other areas of our life, especially for for me that applied to my health and my body. I have started a weight loss and workout plan. I began to realize that all of this indulgent behavior can manifest itself in so many ways and so many areas of our lives. I needed to regain control and at the same time trust in God and acknowledge His control in my life. So this is the inspiration for my blog and for our new way of life. I will be using this forum to talk about how we are doing this, obstacles we are facing, tips for doing this and anything else I fill a need to share. At last I wanted to end with a few goals for this upcoming "year of nothing" YON and basically our new way of life:

Goal -1 To give thanks to God for all blessing and turn to him for strength and fulfillment!
Goal -2 To blog about this journey a minimum of once a week
Goal-3 To tithe 10%
Goal-4 To save 20% each month for this entire year
Goal-5 To be at a healthy goal weight by the end of the year
Goal-6 To share from the heart and be very real about this journey.

I leave you with our new family motto stolen from one of the greatest coaches ever (Chip Kelly head coach of the Oregon Ducks) WIN THE DAY!

Amazing and convicting video on our duty as Christians to care for orphans

I am back!

So I have decided that I need to get back on the bandwagon and start blogging again! I loved being able to look through my older posts and to have the documentation to remeber those special days and how much and how fast my kids are changing and growing!! Here are a few random yet recent pics.

Joe and I at the Army Ball

Space explorer Owen

Wyatt down by the new foot bridge at Chambers BaySweet Ruby 2 yrsAll of the kids got new pjs when daddy came home from Wisconsin, Buzz and Woody were practicing flying to inifinty and beyond!

Our amazing boy!

So as some of you may know, but many of you probably don't, October is National Down Syndrome awareness month. And because of that I though I should post a special blog so that all of you are aware of how amazing our little guy with Down syndrome is! When we were first pregnant with him we were beyond excited to be having our first child and a boy at that. It was perfect just like we planned...little did we know that God had a different plan for our little guy, one that we would never have planned for or have envisioned but that has turned out to be just as great as anything we could have dreamt up. When we first found out at 22 weeks along that Wyatt had Down syndrome, I dont think that I could have imagined writting about how "amazing our little guy with Down syndrome was." I admit I was scared beyond belief about everything this new devleopment meant. What he would look like, how he would act, how others would treat him????? A million thoughts ran through my mind. Some of which I am ashamed of, like the little part of me that wanted something to go wrong with the pregnancy. I knew that I couldn't have an abortion (although I was offered one (at 22weeks!) which is something still amazes and haunts me) for many reasons but most of all our (mine and Joe's) belief that all children are gifts from God. But my thought was that if something might just happen and I lost the baby somehow, than we wouldn't have to go through any more pain and either would he. As you can see this is the depressed state I was in when I first found out the news and I am incredibly ashamed of these thoughts now, but I have given myself permission to admit them because I have a burden on my heart today. I want anyone who is pregnant and has just found out that there is a "problem" with their baby to know that it is okay to experience whatever it is that you have to, but to also know that their child has been created on purpose for a purpose. It is a life that was created by God and that has a plan to be on this earth and to make a difference. We had no idea that Wyatt was not only going to change our lives forever but that he would change the lives and hearts of everyone he meets. He brings light wherever he goes with giant smile and most regularily a request for a hug. He is learning things and doing things we never though imaginable. We have met so many people becuase of him, people that God wanted us to meet and used Wyatt to bring us together. He has our life at a much slower pace, which I have come to love and hate sometimes. Yes I admit it is not just wonderful all of the time, sometime i just wish he would "act his age!!" but I am consistantly reminded of his greater purpose on this earth. We are so blessed to have all of the children that God has intrusted us with. We are so excited to see what Gos has in store for Wyatt ans what great things he is going to do in this life just by being himself!

our little angel!

Ruby and I got a chance to spend a long weekend in Colorado with my sister and her family. It was really fun. Ruby got to meet two of her cousins Grace and Jack who are so sweet. It was hard to leave them. We picked up this sweet little angel costume at a consignment store and had to get it. She certainly is our little angel!