Just a few of my favorite things....

So, one of my sister's best friend Valerie C (not to be confused with my good friend Valerie P) is a loyal reader (thanks girl!) and is SUPER crafty. I mean seriously, her jewelry looks like stuff you'd spend some REAL money on at a store. The premise of this post is to follow a couple of rules and do a blog meme. I've never understood what meme stood for in the blog world. I guess after 4 years I'm still learning.

So on to the meme...

Rules:

1. Mention the person who nominated you. Be sure to check out her blog.

2. List six unimportant things that make you happy.

3. Tag six blogs, state the rules and notify them with a small comment on their blog.

So here we go:

1) I love being a mommy. It's not really 'unimportant,' but it does make me truly happy. I was meant to be a wife and mom, and it has literally changed my life. I love reading about parenting, practicing techniques, and being totally informed. I feel that Eric and I make the right decisions for our little family of 4....which leads to #2

2) I LOVE to read. I loved it when I was little, hated it in high school/college, and love it again. I've always been a fiction reader, and have occasionally ventured into nonfiction, via parenting books, breastfeeding/pregnancy books, couple/marriage/Christian books, bible studies, etc. I just love to soak up the information. Reading the past 7 months or so has actually hindered my #3....

3) I love to scrapbook. I started back in 2003. My mother in law introduced it to me and I love sitting around and looking at my old scrapbooks and pictures. I love when friends or family enjoy looking at them too. I was trying to get caught up before Micah was born, and was really getting a lot done last summer, but I haven't done anything now since last August!!

4) I LOVE Eric. He is perfect for me, we enjoy each others company. I love falling asleep with him every night. I love watching him teach our kids things. I love how patient and sweet he is with Cara (and Micah!). I love that I can listen to him and just be enough for him. I love that we agree on so much. I love that he has given up his spending ways so that we can live frugally and allow me to stay home with our kids. Love him!

5) I love breastfeeding. I should probably look into being a lactation consultant or something. I love it, and I love helping others do it. I love when people ask me questions about it (wink!), as if I know more than them! haha. I do have the most fun book about it that my friend Deanna gave me back when I was pregnant with Cara: "So that's what they're for" Hilarious! :)

6) I'll just end with lots of things I love. I love my dogs. I love getting mail. I love making money from very little. I love being frugal. I love planning parties. I love birthdays. I love teaching my kids about Jesus. I love the sweet coos of a 6 month (when did that happen??!?!?!) old and the sweet "I love you mommy" 's of an almost 3 year old. I love my sister and mine and Eric's family. I love my friends from baylor, santa fe, and Katy. I love KBC. I love NewGround. I love trying to grow a garden. I love my husband. I love my kids. I LOVE my God! :)

Ok, 6 blogs I read religiously: To all my friends who aren't on here (because I have about 50 or so I read), it's not personal, I just didn't think you'd do it, you've posted a lot lately, and I wanted to let you all read some blogs that I have discovered and love!)

1. The Happy Housewife. Love her blog, lots of good information on keeping your kids (all 7 of hers) entertained without a tv, she homeschools, she loves God, she makes bread from scratch, she's awesome :)

2. Money Saving Methods. She offers lots of advice on how to make, save, earn money for your family. I don't do all her things she posts, she's just a rockstar!! But a great daily read! And she's made me $2,500 so far, I will always be loyal :)

3. Julie Paquette. Friend who has moved away but we still keep up. I love that she's a mom of 3 under the age of 4, and is completely caught up with her scrapbooks. She takes some amazing pictures, and does even more amazing things with her photo editing software!! :)

4. Dave Jen Barnes. Friend from Baylor. Mommy of 3 little boys, again, amazing photographer. Pro-breastfeeding. She's the one who got me, after 2 years of reading her blog, to switch to cloth diapers and I love it!!! :) She's also very blunt and tells it how it is, which is one of the things I love about her!

5. Kingdom First Mom. Another great daily read, from Dallas! She balances deals with not overspending (read one of her recent posts on not CVSing too seriously). And she has a little 2 week old, he's precious!

6. Money Saving Mom. A GREAT website. She writes so much. She posts deals, she has lots of baking days, where she stocks her fridge (I love those, she gives great recipes. Valerie and I used a Super Power Muffin recipe we got from her website and it is YUMMY!), among tons of other things. She also has a blog biblicalwomanhoodblog.blogspot.com!

Enjoy, and go read some good blogs :)

Signing Times DVDs??

Did I loan my Signing Times DVDs to anyone? I know I leant some to Aimee, but I'm pretty sure she gave them back. Now I can't find them. It may just be my organizational skills, but if I loaned them to you, could you PLEASE let me know I'm not going crazy? :)

Thanks!

Acts 1:14

Acs 1:14
Originally uploaded by mistylnewsome

Her 2nd verse. We've been working on this one for a few days, and today was the first time she remembered it all by herself (she needed a little help with the reference) :)

Free food day!

I called around, and the Dominos on West. Pkwy isn't participating, but the one at 2331 Fry Rd. Katy, TX 77449 is. If you go in and carry-out between 11-2, you can get a free Bread Bowl, their new 'creation.' Click here for more details, thanks Money Saving Mom (for both deals)!

Also, Baskin Robbins is hosting their 31 cent scoops tonight from 5-10 pm to honor America's firefighters! Click here for more information, and don't forget to donate when you go!! I haven't called yet, but there are a few around Katy, so I figure at least one of them will be participating :).

Oh, and just a side note, my 2 friends have both received their $500 gift cards!! You better get to some money making ;)

Jen, visit my two blog posts http://ericandmistynewsome.blogspot.com/2009/02/my-first-500-gift-card-is-here.html and http://ericandmistynewsome.blogspot.com/2009/03/500-lowes-gift-card-is-in-my-hand.html about the gift cards :)

6 months

Micah had his 6 month visit today. He was 18 pounds 1 ounce (60th percentile), 27.75 inches long (87%) and head was 17.25 (50%). So now that he's over 18 pounds, his dosage for tylenol, etc is in the 12-23 month range (at 6 months). I guess that's right, because Cara, at 37 pounds (and 34 months) is in the 4-5 year old range ;) Here are a couple of pictures of Micah from the last few days.

It's hilarious, he's starting to suck his bottom lip in.

I distinctly remember his older sister doing it at 6 months....

just a little more pronounced!!

Cara's Verse

MOV09078
Originally uploaded by mistylnewsome

The Lord is my Strength!! :) Sorry, you can tell I was trying to guide her and she wanted no part of it! :)

Late Night Update

Yes, it's 4 am here. This post is for you Meredith. For more than one reason. We woke up because of what sounded like hail (and of course thunder), and a little black dog practically sitting on our heads scared silly. So, I go to look outside, and MAN, it seems like any minute the water will be in our back door! Our front door is pretty flooded, but sits higher than the back. One of the gutters in the front looks like it has busted as water is GUSHING over it. Mere--did the back ever flood when you lived here? Eric has done a pretty decent job uncovering about 6 french drains in our back yard, all of which have tree roots throughout them, and none of which actually work! :) Every time it rains like this, the water gets deeper and deeper, and now it's scary! The funny part is, I realized the computer was still on, so I was going to open it and shut it down in case of a power surge. 20 minutes later, here I am. We will see if our gardens we have planted survive this, it has been LOTS of water the past week or two.

So, what to write about? God, but of course. He has been working in our lives. I feel it, and so does Eric. Eric has taken ownership of our family's God time. He has always prayed with Cara before bed, and at dinner (I do it when he's not home throughout the day), but recently he has started helping her learn her bible verse (from the book we got her from Easter), he teaches our small group when it's our turn as a couple, he taught Cara's preschool class on Sunday when we were subbing for some friends (man was that fun and so cute to see Cara play with kids her age that we don't know as well). And Cara is really starting to remember things. We taught on Lazarus, and we colored a page with Mary, Martha, Jesus and Lazarus on it. Later that day we asked Cara about someone (I can't even remember what we were talking about) and instead of answering us correctly, she said, "Lazarus." :) haha.

I'll see if I can get some video of her posted online saying her first verse. It's really cute. I have been blessed with a great group of girls to share all my prayers and what God is doing in my life with. We started a 'women's accountability group a few months ago, and I love it. I have been so blessed!! It has opened me up to new women and their struggles, as well as made me speak up about mine. It has created communication on things I have previously kept to myself. I came home last night from it (it's also great to get out once every two weeks when the kids are in bed and just BE with other women without kiddos) and Eric and I had a great talk!!

In other news, I know NO ONE is going to believe it, but I still haven't had Micah's 6 month pictures taken!! I know. Usually I got THE day (so the 25th of the month), but I refuse to go on the weekends! They are super crowded and it takes forever. So yesterday was busy with the dentist, etc and today is Eric's mom's birthday (Happy Birthday Nana!!), so I need to bake a cake, among other things before tonight. So maybe Wednesday we'll go. This Saturday is Eric's 'spring trip' to Schlitterbahn in Galveston with his 7th and 8th graders. The kids and I get to go, I'm kinda excted!! Not about the whole being in a bathing suit in public thing, but about going to the park. I've never been.

Valerie and my day of cooking was awesome. Eric and Luke took turns wrangling the kids and they all did great. Luke came home and grilled YUMMY burgers for us (although no offense Luke, they don't look near as good as the cheddar butter burgers your wife put together for our freezer, ha!). The Newsomes arrived at the Pearsons house around 8:20 that morning, and after unloading my entire kitchen from the van, we got right to work. Val was a chopping machine. I started two crock pots, then went onto some mixing for baking. Our day wouldn't have gone half as smoothly as it did if my hubby hadn't cut up (some diced, others sliced) an entire 9 pound ham I cooked on Thursday!! We were soooo thankful we didn't have to do that. So far what we've tried has been good (mostly muffins and some homemade ham hot pocket things). I haven't made any of the dinners yet, because some of my deer meat thawed, so I cooked that last night. Plus, we'll be eating at his parents house tonight, so maybe Thursday we'll try a freezer meal. Val and I agreed we aren't claiming success until we eat the food, but man did it go rather smoothly and smell great as we were putting it together!! We were all done cooking at cleaning around 3:15/3:30 ish.

After that we went home and crashed. Oh wait, no, I jumped in the shower, we rushed around, and had chick fil a for dinner (I know, after cooking ALL day!), and headed to church for our ABF's scavenger hunt. Oh the fun we had. 2 of our neighbors probably think we're a little bit crazy for it (we had to get pictures of us with lots of random things, and among all the weird things we had at our house, my neighbors had even more!). Eric ended up with a strip of hair gone for the night (he has since finished that hair cut) and our yard STILL has a strip of grass gone. And now it's flooded, so we'll see when it gets mowed!! I am so thankful for our church and the body of believers we 'do life' with. God blessed us even more than I could have imagined by leading us here.

Oh, a couple of cute things....Cara loves Cinderella. She first saw it when we were up in Dallas and she was sick. Ashley pulled it out and we've been watching it ever since. She has her favorite parts (chapters 12 and 14 when the "birds are singing and the mice are singing") and her not so favorite parts (anything with the cat in it). And we've watched certain parts so often now, it's hilarious, as soon as she sees them (when they are fixing Cinderelly's dress), she asks for her tutu (thanks Erin!!) (and look at those shirley temple curls!!) and puts it on and dances around singing. Man is that a hard thing to get off when all of a sudden she has to go potty! :) haha. She also has recently discovered dress up (it's a good thing since her 3rd birthday party is going to be a tea party....with possibly dress up!), and literally just goes through my closet and pulls things off the hangers. Any cami or tank top she finds is instantly her bra, and has to be covered by another shirt (read: two things ending up in the floor of my closet and not on hangers).

And yes, those are Eric's shoes! :)

We had to explain to her the wedding part. She has always called all the princess movies (ok, she's seen cinderella and little mermaid) their "daddy" when they get married. Which I think is super cute, but we explained how they were getting married, and they were the girls husbands. So now, whenever Cinderella and Prince Charming are on the screen at the end, she's screaming "She's getting married!" I have to get it on film, it's hilarious. AND she thinks her nap mat cover is a wedding dress, because she always asks for it, so she can wear it 'like cinderelly and get married.' I have some cute pictures of her in it, on the camera.

And a couple of Micah Man. This was after a bath, Mommy tried to give him a mohawk...he doesn't have quite enough hair for that yet.

And since I'm a month behind and never posted it, here was his 5 month picture from JC Penney!

So happy for MckMama

Wow! Stellan is discharged and looking as happy as ever!! So glad God decided to let this little boy into my heart. He has been a blessing to pray for.

In other news, my little man turned SIX months on Saturday!! Can you believe it? We had a LAZY morning at home (aka not getting dressed until just before naps), then 'hit the town' for 2 birthday parties! He had a great day. I will post pics soon, and his stats will be coming up tomorrow when we get back from the doctor!

Quick Post

To offset my super long one. Cooking day = A SUCCESS! Freezer full. Fun was had. Kids behaved (for the most part). Forgot camera! Hilarious fun at church that evening with our ABF child care night. What a RIOT!

Unfrugal Misty strikes again!! And the Lord provides!

Wow, this has been an interesting week. This is also a super long post, but please read through the end!! Let me back track to the end of last week. You know from my previous posts that we had essentially put in a dog run on the side of our house. It has been working out GREAT for us. Less mess (mud/dirt) by the back door, less poop in the back yard, no dogs running through our new gardens, etc. However, it was NOT working out great for Riley. Did you know you could stress a dog out? Yeah, me neither (well, actually I did because Gweny stresses every time we move). I could tell because a few days after we made them start going outside over there, the diarrhea began. Over night. In the House. On my TILE. Yeah, if that wasn't bad ENOUGH, last Friday he decided to leave me a gift ON MY BED. Y.U.C.K. You've never seen someone gag so much as I was trying to clean that up. I got as much as I could off, sprayed spray and wash, vacuumed it a little, then headed to the dry cleaners. I was proud of myself for doing that, because my first instinct was to throw it away. I got it back today and it looks good as new. Thank God, because if it didn't, it would be in the trash! :)

So anyways, we thought he'd grow out of it. But alas, not the case. Monday morning, after taking him out and cleaning up the poop on the tile, I was trying to look at his behind when he came in to see if there were any remnants. He put his tail between his legs and sat down so I couldn't see. That's when I saw the blood on my tile. GREAT. How much is this going to cost? So, we hurried and got everyone in the car. We dropped Cara off a preschool and Riley at the vet. They finally called around 1 and said he had colitis, an inflammation of the intestines. Which is dogs is usually caused by bacteria (they ruled this out since he was just in for his yearly check up and shots) or stress. Funny conversation:

Vet: "Has Riley been stressed out lately"
Me: "Actualy yes, we put in a gate so he has less yard space, and I think it freaked him out."
Vet: "Yeah, that would probably do it."
Me: "Do you realize we're talking about a dog??!!?!"

Anyways, $150 later, we had a dog with shots and pills to take for a WEEK. Great, but not too bad. So, I go to pick Cara up and she is FREAKING out. She never does this at school. They said she wouldn't potty all day and she's been saying it hurts, and they ask what, and she holds her crotch. So, we go straight to Dr. Lentsch's office. She's crying and wants me to hold her (and carry in a 20 pound infant in the car seat because I knew I'd have to deal with her), so yea for 60 pounds, at least I got in a short workout. They call us back and she's freaking and starts doing the potty dance. The nurse gives me a cup and a wipe and sends us on our way. I can barely get her pants down before she starts going, so she didn't get wiped. But we did catch lots of pee in her cup. Helen checks her all out, goes and checks the results of the urine culture, and says she has the beginning of a UTI. She gets a prescription for an antibiotic (the one that I thought sent us to the emergency room last month....but thankfully she has had no reaction to so far after 3 doses) and is happy as a clam after she peed. I just have to brag for a minute. The next day I picked her up from preschool (where she peed twice like a champ thanks to some cranberry juice) and we were in the minivan driving home. She has been speaking in sentences for awhile, but I'm just amazed at her memory these days. She says, "Mommy, do we have to go see Dr. Lentsch (she pronounced it like lunch) and go pee pee in the potty in the white cup to make me feel better." "Haha, no sweetie, we don't today, she made you feel better yesterday." "Yeah Mommy, Dr. Lentsch made me feel better yesterday, we don't have to go see her today." Not that big of a deal, but I'm surprised she had time to remember what color the cup was. Oh, and hilarious side note, as soon as she peed in it and we were wiping it off and washing our hands, she says, "Yucky yucky, we don't want to drink that." Yes baby, Thank God you know that! :)

So, Sunday night I had menu planned in what feels like forever. I was trying to stretch our dollar and use up what we had on hand. I always ask Eric what he wants for dinner when I'm planning, and for months it's been Mac and Cheese. Seriously? For dinner? So, this Monday I obliged and found Pioneer Woman's Mac N Cheese recipe. Wow. I'm sorry to say it Mom, but this mac n cheese was the best I've ever tasted!!! I still love my mom's recipe, but this was WOW. Totally unhealthy, but awesome!! I did use partial whole wheat macaroni, but still, I don't want to calculate the points, or total calories, or fat content. I just want to enjoy a night of homemade yummy deliciousness for dinner. Wow. Sorry, mouth still watering as I had leftovers for lunch today.

The reason I was trying to stretch our dollar is that I had quite a few things left I needed to buy for my friend Valerie and my first attempt at Once a Month Cooking, which we are doing tomorrow!! Eric is taking the day off (well, only in the sense he won't be at the school) and watching the 4 monsters as Val and I try to make 10 lunches, 15 dinners, and I think as many breakfasts. Luke will be home at noon for some relief, but by then it'll be almost naptime!! So, I was pretty proud of myself as I only overspent our grocery budget this month by $50, however, I have a stocked pantry, freezer, and will have over half our meals prepared for the month of May. Can I get down to my $150 budget goal for that month? It depends if I do the freezer cooking again and how much more I'd have to get for it. But I am hopeful!! I'm sure I'll post pictures, if I remember my camera, of our cooking day.

Ok, so onto the chronicles of Unfrugal Misty. I don't really count the dog incident, because it could not have been avoided. However, the money did still come out of the budget (from a different category, more on that later). So Wednesday morning. Playgroup zoo trip. Carpooling with Val. Kids dressed, me dressed, Micah nursed, lunches packed, dog pilled, 4 grocery bags loaded in the car to take to Vals, stroller and extra car seat loaded. Reverse, hit garage door button (uh oh), BAM!!!! AAAAAGGH!! (Me) "Mommy, what was DAT!!!!???! (Cara OVER and OVER). Yep, garage door crashed and shattered our back windshield. I calmly dialed Val, asked her to come pick me up. Left the kids in the car so I wouldn't have to worry about Cara walking in glass. Unloaded everything. Swept up the glass. Vacuumed car set and stroller so I wouldn't have Cara sitting in glass at the zoo/in the car. Telling Cara repeatedly Mommy's ok. As she recalls, "Mommy, the garage door came down and BANG the new car's window bye bye!!" Thanks honey. Val gets there, load everything, hit the button and hear the excrutiating sound of the garage door coming down filled with glass. YEA! Valerie couldn't believe how calm I was all day. I was in my head going "Ok, so $500? $1,000?? And we just built up our emergency fund again, great!" But I had a great time at the zoo with our playgroup. On the way home I kinda started freaking out about how much it would be. Got home, put Cara down for a nap, emailed, read facebook, tried to put off calling for an estimate. Can you believe I didn't take any pictures??? I called Christian Brothers here in Katy for people to call, they are so NICE! Called two people, and got someone to come to MY HOUSE here THIS MORNING to install and CLEAN THE MESS for only $150!! Hallelujia, Praise God!! I mentioned previously how 3 of my tax clients overpaid. Did I mention it was by $280? Do you see how that is almost exactly enough to cover my windshield and the vet bill???? God is so good. If only we hadn't had that ($20) celebratory dinner at Spring Creek BBQ. We'd be right on track.

For those of you that are wondering, ok, you're $50 over budget on groceries, how are you making this work. Well, we are in saving mode. Yes, we still owe on the minivan, and the plan was to have that paid off in July (only 14 payments!) by using Dave Ramsey's debt snowball (well, that's our only debt, so we went from building our emergency fund, to focusing on that). However, when Cara had her hospital stay, I knew that would change. So far we have received no bills, but have seen all but one (the big one) EOB on our aetna navigator, which totals around $1,600. We are still waiting for the EOB from the downtown hospital that was the overnight stay. Yes, the $1,600 only includes the 3 hour ER stay, the hospital ride, some x-rays, etc in Katy. Some was covered by our health fund, then the rest 'helped us' reach our deductible, so the nice thing is we'll only owe 25% of Aetna's rate on the 'big bill.' All this to tell you we are taking all our extra funds for the months coming (plus March and April) and putting it in savings to pay off the health bills as soon as we get them. Which means, yes, I overspent, and that'll be just $50 less that goes in savings. But hopefully it'll help me spend less on groceries next month and have even more to save. Man, I wish I'd know when these bills are coming. My friend's daughter had hernia surgery last November at Katy Hermann, and she didn't get a bill until March. If that's the norm, then we wouldn't get one until August, which would be right around when I'm getting my $1,500 online offer check!! :) But since I don't know, I want to save the money right NOW! UGH.

Anyways, so that's a lengthy update. Still praying for Stellan and the Johnsons. Also praying I get Micah on a more predictable schedule. He's eating like a CHAMP. So far he's had sweet potatoes, bananas, avocado and plums. I've got pears I need to puree next, and then we start (on Saturday when he reaches 6 months) our 'Super Porridge!" Ok, that's all for now :) I have lots of cute videos of Cara saying her new bible verse, will post once I get them on my computer.