Bragging Rights

I feel like posting tonight about my wonderful husband: Corey.

I have a really great husband....even if we did pick each other young! One of the things I admire about him the most is that he strives and succeeds at being a good person by making the best possible choices he can make for his family. I can honestly say that Corey always chooses to be with his family above anything else. He does occassionally have a "guy's" night with the church bowling (but it is CHURCH bowling for pete's sake!...not guy's night at the pub or something). If he wants to see a movie, which he does occassionally, he always chooses to go late after he has been home to see the family and tuck the kids into bed. We feel important to him.
I can say with confidence that I can always count on him to be there when I need him. When I was pregnant with Katie I was very sick. I couldn't eat and was of course hormonal and crying a lot! I called him at Mohawk where he worked at the time...I was crying, sick, just miserable! He actually left work and came home to take care of me! He got me upstairs with crackers, drinks, tucked me into bed and told me he loved me. Now, he couldn't stop the puking, but emotionally he really took care of me! That meant so much to me! What kind of guy would leave work to go tuck their sick wife into bed? MINE would and did!

Recently we began growing spiritually together...and I am enjoying this time so much! He is really taking the position of spiritual head of our household and I can already see the difference it is making in our family and in our children. He is going to be a great example for his son and daughter, and will be someone they can look to as an example of how a Christian man runs his house. I am so proud of him and how happy our house is because of this! Katie and Noah will have someone to be "Christ" in their home as it is supposed to be with a father...I thank God everyday for this blessing in our home.

Another great thing about Corey....he is just a fun person. We can be silly, play games together, play with our kids, be crazy...just anything...anytime. He is polite and has good manners (in public anyway lol)...and someone I am never nervous about introducing to anyone I know. It was a priviledge to introduce him to my family when we first started dating, and it has been a priviledge to see him grow into being a part of my family.

I also want to say what I great dad he is. He takes his responsibility for the raising of his children very seriously. He is always trying to be a better example, a better caretaker, and is open to my ideas and suggestions for them. To know that he respects my opinions as a mom and makes me feel so valuable! He loves that I stay at home, and he really appreciates what I do at home...I know because he tells me. He always allows me my "me" time, and he recognizes my need for that. I appreciate it so much!

I could go on more about how much I love my husband and the father of our children...but I don't want to gush anymore or it would seem fake.

I just felt like these things needed to be said. I am proud of Corey. I know he will always take care of us and that he will not sacrifice his time with us and the good of our family for anything in this world. He is a wonderful husband and dad...that's all I can say...I love my husband!

Happy New Year!

Goals for 2008:

1. Get out of debt! I will support this cause by being very frugile with groceries and "needs."
Though it may not be feasible to get completely out of debt by the end of the year, hopefully a large portion will be gone! Yay!

2. Keep the house out of CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome*). My goal is that anyone can ring the doorbell and I will not have to barely open the door to talk through the crack or pretend I am not home. Also...if someone does come over I won't have to tell them the toilet is broken...I will not be embarrassed to allow them to use our restroom! *CHAOS taken from "flylady.com"

3. Eat dinner at home 6 out of 7 days per week! As opposed to buying stuff for 5 meals per week then eating at the most 4 at home. This could save tons of money thus supporting goal number one!

4. Stop biting my fingernails. I have been doing this for as long as I can remember. My mom put the bitter stuff on my nails when I was little....it still didn't work.

5. Eat healthy. I am not putting "lose weight" as a goal, but if I do this, surely the weight thing will follow. Can't gain too much weight by cutting out all that fat and sugar right?

6. Make an effort to be joyful about household chores. In other words that prayer I have seen that talks about thanking God while you do the dishes because we have food to eat, and thanking God for the clothes to wash because we have an abundance of things to wear, etc. I am so much happier when my house is clean. It is like the state of the house sets my mood for the day, so this will help with so many other things!

7. Do a Bible study devotion with Corey 5 days every week. We have ordered a book that I think will be good. It is by Beth Moore. This will be good hopefully!

8. Finish the scarves I started knitting for Katie and Noah. I have 3/4 of one done for Katie, and Noah's is still completely in the skein. (sp?). I need to get going on this one to get them done for next winter lol!

9. Learn to sew and make a curtain for Noah's toy shelf. I have a free sewing machine waiting for me, just gotta get going on it!

10. If I don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all! (The most difficult one to keep of all I do believe!) The only way I see to accomplish this is to just NOT be around certain people, or to come prepared with plenty of things to daydream about while I am around them so that I don't pay attention to anything they are saying. Or perhaps I can work on my attitude.

#11: Recycle. I had to add this one today when I filled a trash bag with boxes and plastic bottles from water and cleaning supplies. Maybe by the end of the year we can be recycling at least cardboard and plastic...the main trash fillers around here.

I truly believe I am capable of completing all of these goals. All of them I will certainly need help with, especially #10. We will see how it goes! #4 is the one I expect most to fail in...but I will give it the old college try anyway!

Christmas!

We figured out the slide show thing, so here it is! And here is my Christmas post:

Merry 2 days after Christmas! I have a few pictures to share…some from our home Christmas fun! I don’t have pictures of everything, but we have a really great time and our “new” Christmas traditions turned out GREAT!

It all began Friday night with our birthday party for Jesus. Katie and Noah picked out decorations, plates, etc. We had birthday cake, sang, blew out candles. For dinner we had made homemade pizzas together. It was a lot of fun and Katie and Noah were very excited. The feared question didn’t arise (how old is Jesus) so I didn’t have to answer that one this year! lol.
After we ate we read the Christmas story from their children’s Bible. Then we talked about why we are getting gifts for Christmas and why we are giving gifts. Then we all opened one present: each of us ended up with a game. We enjoyed spending time together playing the games as a family. Katie and Noah even pitched in to help Corey with Mario. Then it was leaving out a piece of cake to pretend that Santa ate, then to bed.

Noah was the first one up the next morning and he woke up Katie and the rest of the fun began!:
Katie got Baby Alive with a crib (her wanted gift), all her supplies for ballet/tap beginning in January (her need), and Cranium Cariboo (her gift to enjoy with the family). Baby Alive poops a LOT by the way, and we still don’t have extra diapers bc we haven’t been out yet! Cranium Cariboo is probably THE neatest and most fun kids game I have ever played! They get to use a key to open doors and find balls to drop in this chute that opens a treasure box…AND it is educational bc they have to match up characteristics on the doors to open them…anyway really fun, highly recommended!

Noah got his “transformer robots” that he asked for, a balance beam and tumbling mat to practice his tumbling (his need) and Cootie for the family to enjoy together. I have to say that Cootie is not nearly as fun as you remember it being, in fact it is a long tedious game! His tranformers are very loud but cool apparently according to Noah and Corey.

Corey got his Mario Galaxy game he desperately wanted. He has put in many hours of late night play so far. He also got a tool organizer chest thing (the something he needed) and a new boombox/charger for his Ipod (something the entire family will enjoy :), and did for the rest of the day listening to Christmas music!

I finally got my mixer! After resisting Corey’s pleads to open it all week, I got my KitchenAid mixer. It is white and I used it immediately by mixing up gingerbread cookies and two batches of suger cookies! I also got Cake Mania for the DS….a HIGHLY addictive game (my thing I wanted) and for my thing I need I got a cute apron (blue with cherries on it). The mixer is for the entire family to enjoy! And we will!!!!!

Each of them had giant stockings with other “stuff”….dress up outfit, some educational games, typical filler stuff.

Overall it was a great Christmas for us! We enjoyed it SO much!

The next few days were very busy, but we are all settled in again and the mess has been tamed.
I hope everyone had as wonderful a Christmas as us!

Merry Christmas Friends!

I have created a "digital" Christmas letter for you all! I got the idea from someone else's blog, so here it is:

http://creativecarriet.wordpress.com/

I hope you enjoy it! You can leave comments here!

Thanks!

Something serious, but not...

I have a warning for everyone reading this blog: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT buy Crayola Silly Scents crayons for anyone on your shopping list. Not unless you have an abnormal affection for the smell of dirt and old avon perfume.
I picked these up at Target to put in my kid's stockings. Well, I am battling a bad cold today and trying to rest all day. Needless to say as soon as I secured the front door, had all juice cups refilled and settled in with a blanket and closed my eyes I get screaming kids fighting and running to tell me that smoothie has been spilled all over the carpet.
So....we got a little Christmas surprise early. I went to the closet to take out a surprise to distract them for a while so I can rest. And boy was it a surprise! I expected things like red = strawberry, blue = blueberry, black = licorice, etc. Well...these "silly scents" have a totally different theme!
purple = pixie powder, pink = princess perfume, teal = sea serpent, green = alien armpit, and the ridiculousness goes on and on!
Anything "girly" sounding smells like old avon perfume. Anything "boy" sounding smells like dirt and avon from being in the box with the other ones. Noah only colored with them for about 30 seconds before he was putting the "stinky" crayons back in the box!
I don't know whose bright idea it was to have such horrible smells for crayons, but apparently they must have unearthed an antique supply of old lady's cologne, or else something went terribly wrong at the crayola factory and they decided to capitalize on it with a weird smell theme.
Anyway....don't buy it, unless it's for your GREAT grandmother's stocking!
I am really glad we didn't "open" those on Christmas morning! UGH! What a spoiler that would have been!

The Latest....

If this is the first time you are catching up with the Katie story, you must scroll down to Dec. 7th to read the whole thing from the beginning. I said that because there are a few people that I sent the story to who I know haven't had a chance to read it yet....

Katie had a great weekend with her glasses. She is so good and hasn't complained one time about wearing them. In fact, yesterday she put them on all by herself before she came out of her bedroom! She said, "The eye doctor said I must wear them all day!"

Today we will do our first patch therapy. I am sure it will go fine. I am going to print off some coloring pages for her to do...something "fun" the doctor said.

Noah already broke his pretend glasses! First of all, Saturday we were at Steak and Shake and he laid his down on the table, they got knocked off and kicked way up under a booth seat. So, I got down to fish them out. Then, yesterday in the car suddenly one of the ear pieces was completely bent! No idea how it happened! This leads me to another blessing! We are blessed and thankful that if one of our children needs glasses, that it is KATIE and not NOAH! ha ha. Do they make glasses out of rubber yet?

Katie has spent a majority of the morning sitting and looking at/reading books! I read one of her readers with her this morning and she was able to read it laying in the floor and I think she did better than normal! I will truly be able to tell when we get a brand new book.

I just put the strap on her glasses for tumbling today. At first they pushed all the way against her eyes so that wasn't good, but then we got it fixed. I am anxious to see if she does better on the balance beam today, but prepared if she doesn't....it won't be an overnight fix.

Anyway, thanks for keeping up with us! I will try to get a picture of Katie and Noah with their glasses (if we can fix his) to post soon.

Blessed again!

Katie's glasses came in YESTERDAY! It was supposed to take 5-7 business days. BLESSED AGAIN! I was on the phone waiting for a friend to come to the line and the eye dr. beeped in...needless to say my friend got "hung up on" before she even got to the phone. They said Katie's glasses are in...they are open till 6. It was 4:20 and I had JUST put bread in the oven and we were on a "must have a shower before we go out the door one more day" day. So....at five minutes till five Katie and I had both been bathed, dressed, the oven shut off (good luck bread!) and we were on our way! When we got there and they put the glasses on Katie, as I told my friend, it was no "Helen Keller" moment, but her eyes got really big and she got really close to the mirror to look at herself. She kept saying "I look SO cute!" (I think she may have heard that from me :)
Here is Katie in her new glasses! She kept making funny faces so this was the best we got...we were on our way out the door....
I think that these glasses just look like they were made for her! It's almost like she is finally herself...her personality is now complete! If you have been around Katie then you know what I am talking about when I say that....it just seems so natural!
I didn't even make it through the morning without another tearjerker though. This morning as I was getting her ready, I took off her glasses while she was standing in front of the mirror so I could brush her hair and pull it back. She squinted and looked in the mirror and said, "Mommy, I need my glasses back on...it looks like bumpy water!"
Katie has been seeing "bumpy water" as normal for as far as we know 5 years.....

There is no telling what she has missed....everything that she didn't look straight at apparently. We stopped by the in-laws on the way out of town to let them see her glasses. When she got out of the car she immediately looked into their flower bed up next to the house. There was a Brinks security sign on a post next to the house. It was white with blue writing against their basically whitish house. She said "What is THAT?!" They told her. I said, "How long has that been there?" Nana answered, "The whole time we have lived here." (since before she was born).....................

What an amazing and wonderful world for Katie to get to rediscover!
Keep her in your prayers as she continues to adjust and we do the patch therapy with her.

THANK YOU GOD FOR HELPING US HELP KATIE TO SEE!

(The bread didn't get done....oh well....)