Memories

A few weeks ago I was at my mother-in-laws house and she was starting to pack to move. She opened her huge armoire filled with antique quilts and made a huge pile for me to take home. She said that she had carried them around for 30 years and that it was my turn.

I love these quilts. Each of the kids got a completely handmade one for their beds and the rest I washed and folded up to keep until we need them.

These quilts have always been a part of my in-laws home. I can't count the number of times she pulled some out for us when we stayed the night.

I hope that one day I will pull them out for my grandchildren when they spend the night.

We have been cleaning like crazy around here. Today I am continuing to purge and do a complete clean sweep. I am so tired of having so much useless stuff around the house. Spring break started today. The kids are going to be put to work too. :)

I really didn't want to

I just joined the grocery game again. I really really didn't want to. It is great savings but the time it takes to keep up with the coupons, plan the lists, etc. is a pain in the you know what. So I am not happy about joining again. I just felt like I needed to in order to build up our stockpile again for cheap.

It will probably cause me more stress than it is worth but oh well. I will give it a try again.

Almost done

.......and loving it!!

Wishing......

I am so ready to plant our garden and go blueberry picking. We have had some beautiful weather lately. Let's just hope it keeps up. There is great excitement in the air over our soon to be garden.

( Photo taken last summer)

Batman and the Bad Guys

One thing I never get tired of is hearing ( and seeing) the boy play with his toys. Right now he is very much into Batman and other super heroes. He carries them everywhere we go.

It is hilarious to hear him play. He makes the cutest bad guy voices and sounds when they are fighting. I also must brag that he plays extremely well by himself. Today he was at the kitchen table for almost an hour playing with Batman and the "bad guys" as he calls them.

I LOVE having a boy!!

A much needed family trip

Saturday turned out to be the most beautiful day we had seen in a long time. So on the spur of the moment we decided to pack up and make the very very long trip to see the Battleship Texas and the Texas Monument. We had such a fantastic day as a family. We really needed a day to escape the sadness and stress and focus on us.

We went to the battleship first( kids were absolutely mesmerized) and then we ate and visited the Texas Monument. The kids were great the whole day even in the monument museum. By the time we got home we were beyond exhausted. Macie came up to me shortly after we were in the house and said...." Mommy, can I PLEASE go to bed now?"

I took over 50 pictures but blogger is acting up so I will have to post them another time. The last pic is of me and the kids. I love the pic except it was very windy and my hair is blowing in every direction. Oh well.

I will post the rest of the pictures as soon as blogger starts acting normal. I am SO glad we went.

A little sneak peek....

My aunt and I have been painting since 9:00 this morning. She left at 5:00 and we still aren't done BUT it looks so incredibly awesome that I can barely contain myself. Oh my I am excited.

And my kids are pretty happy too. :):)

I *heart* IKEA

Today I went to Ikea with my friend and her kids and what a blast we had. I got everything on my list and can't wait to paint the kids room so I can put everything up. SO EXCITED! Towards the end of the trip my friend let the kids watch Monsters Inc. on her phone. The boy looked SO cute watching it.

I really do love IKEA. I could have easily spent $5,000 there today but instead I showed restraint and only spent $80. Not bad at all for everything I got though. The day really got my mind off of everything that has been sad around here and I feel a lot better tonight. I think reconnecting with my friends is going to help me.

Here are the pics of my cute cute kid. I *heart* this boy..............and IKEA. :)

Together

Every 100 years or so my kids will sit down together and play nice and calm. And if I am really lucky I will be able to capture the rare moment on camera.

( If you look closely you can see that the boy brought an action figure to the loving family neighborhood. )

Think before you throw away

I have really been struggling with being frugal lately. I have several auctions on Ebay I am bidding on. I am doing my best though and truly trying to watch what I spend. I love to make smoothies for the kids and me. Usually I use milk and they turn out great. I have been reading that plain yogurt is great for making smoothies so I bought a HUGE container of it and tried out a smoothie with it. YUCK!!! I couldn't even drink it. Nasty texture and taste.


The kids love yogurt but only strawberry or peach. So here I have an enormous container of plain yogurt in my fridge. Normally it would have been thrown out right away but I kept it in there thinking I could put it to good use somehow. So I did some research and found a master muffin recipe mix here. I choose the liquid option using the yogurt and voila! Cocoa muffins that the kids and hubby devoured in one night.

Sure it was only a $2 container of yogurt but think about how many times you throw something out after a failed recipe. You may not be guilty of it but I sure am. So I saved myself $2 and in the long run maybe I will think about finding another way to use something before I throw it out.

The Return of Scrapbooking!

Shortly after we moved to the house I stopped scrapbooking. It wasn't something I intended to do. It just happened. I missed it terribly but just couldn't find the motivation to get back to it. My mother-in-law asked me to do an album for my father-in-laws funeral and I was very touched. I had to complete a 20 page album in less that a week after taking a year break.

I did get it done and I was thrilled with the results. After that I felt my creativity and the want to sit down and record our history coming back. Friday night I sat down and worked on 4 pages for myself. I am back! This time I am scrapbooking for ME. For my family. I don't care about what others think is "in" now. If I like it great but I don't care if others think the techniques or products I use are outdated. If I love it then it is a great page. I am not done with this page yet since I need to go buy an archival safe pen. This is the start of oodles of pages I will be working on now. It feels so good to be back! :) ( You can click on the pic to make it bigger if you want. )

Moving Forward

Part of the reason I have had a hard time blogging is because I feel guilty about doing the things I enjoy. I feel as though I should be mourning 24/7. But when I stop to think about it I know that my father-in-law would want us to be happy. He wants the kids to laugh and run around happily. He wants hubby and I to move forward together. I know this because family was everything to him. So now I am trying to make an effort to get back to the things that bring us joy.

It isn't easy and lord knows it hurts deeply but we are trying to move forward. We miss him SOOOO very very much. The picture was taken several years ago on Thanksgiving.

Now

Right now we are struggling in many ways. Our hearts are SO heavy. One thing that came along with this is an extra burden of financial stress. We had to pay for the funeral. Well my brother-in-law and mother-in-law helped too but it was still a large amount of money that we now have to pay back. We can live with that. We accept that. Now we also have to be able to help out my mother-in-law financially if she needs it. So with this tragedy came a new way of looking at how we spend our money.

We have been trying for a very long time to agree on how we should save, etc. Well now we don't have a choice. Things are changing with how we view our income because they have to. Since everything has happened I have not felt the need to buy a lot of stuff. The day before I had four packages arrive at my door step. I was buying books and other things. Now I don't feel the need to spend each chance I get.

Today I made an exception. Our home is our sanctuary. And right now it is the ONLY place that any of us want to be. Since I was a teenager my favorite artist ( besides my aunt who is truly the most AMAZING artist) is Amy Brown( link in my sidebar). I used to collect postcards of her prints. For years I have wanted an 8.5X11 print of her work but for some reason I always held off. Today was the day. I went to her site and feel in love with several prints. Then I looked on Ebay and found a print that I had never seen on her site. I feel instantly in love and have already paid via Paypal. It cost me $19 after shipping. But I don't feel guilty. I LOVE it. It is something I will treasure for years to come and I have waited years to buy one.

Being frugal is something that we have to do now. I enjoy being frugal but I also believe that sometimes you have to make an exception.

Sad

I am trying to get into a mood where I feel like blogging. It just hasn't really happened yet. My mother-in-law ended up in the hospital a day before the funeral and life is very sad and uneasy right now.

We are trying to hold on but it is proving extremely difficult. We are taking it easy and today was the first day we returned to our normal routine. Hubby went back to work and the girls are at school today.

Right now we are finding comfort in our small little home. Not really wanting to leave. Just hanging out, napping, crying, talking, breaking down, laughing, and crying some more all in one day. It has been a roller coaster and not a very fun one.

I keep praying for God to give us strength. I took this pic yesterday. We got a ton of plants and flowers for the service. My brother-in-law sent some home with us including a HUGE arrangement with three separate plants from hubby's work. We now have five new plants in our home and I must say that they are bringing me comfort.

Thank you all so very very much for the comments. I am still feeling very very sad and depressed. We miss the glue that held our family together.

Peace and comfort

Right now there is no peace in our hearts. We are grieving to the point of being physically sick. So much has happened in the past week that I feel like my chest is going to explode. I have had to find my own kind of peace and comfort in little things this week. I just wanted to get a few of them posted so I could get it out.

* Laying on hubby's moms couch last night at 3:00 a.m grieving and crying with hubby's arms wrapped tightly around me.

* Watching our kids run into hubby's arms

* The support of family and friends has been amazing

I need to continue to remind myself to breathe and thank God every single night for my blessings.

I wanted to let you all know that I am going to be taking a break for the next week or so. I need to focus on getting our family through this. My mother-in-law asked me to do a scrapbook for the service so I have to get that all together. I have lots of posts I want to do when I come back.

Thank you for the prayers and well wishes.

I don't know what to say. My head is pounding and my heart is devastated. My father-in-law passed away today. I can't think. My head is clouded. Our family is crumbling. I don't know what to say or do. It was so sudden. I just don't know how we are going to pull through.

I have to get some sleep. Or at least try. My chest hurts from crying since 10:00 this morning.

Super powered smoothies

Since we are all pretty miserable over here I made a super powered smoothie today at lunch time. I used:

bananas
strawberries
peaches
fresh baby spinach ( Shhhh. Don't tell my kids)
orange juice
plain yogurt
honey
a little bit of sugar

Mix it up and you get some super powered disease fighting goodness. It was so good that the boy drank his with 2 straws.

I am off to cook dinner now. Wanna know a little secret? I haven't cooked dinner in my kitchen in over 3 weeks. That's right. Three weeks of ordering in, eating out and fast food. Wanna know how much we have spent doing that? Well I am not going to say because if I type it out I will get depressed. If I get depressed I am not going to feel like going into the kitchen right now and fixing dinner. See how that works. I HAVE to get myself back on track with cooking. So my readers better hold me to it. I WILL cook dinner EVERY night for at least a week starting tonight. Now let's see if I follow through.

Two little broken hearts

Last night I had two very excited little girls at home. They were filling out all of their Valentines cards and getting ready for their Friday Valentines parties at school. They were beyond excited. This morning I get them off to school and then not long after I get a call from the nurse saying that Macie has a 101 degree fever and has to come home. My poor baby is missing her party. I would have left her there but if a kid has over 100 fever they HAVE to go home.

The second broken heart is Makayla. I go to all of their school parties. I go to Macie's first then Makaylas. I had them pull Makayla out of class so I could talk to her and let her know that I couldn't come to her party now because Macie would be home sick. She broke down and started crying her little eyes out right there in the front office. BROKE MY HEART IN HALF! So now she is sad because I will not be there for her party and Macie is sad because she will not get to have her party at all. They have been counting down for 2 weeks now. :(

I just want to cry for them. School parties at that age are the greatest thing ever. Hubby is really sick but still not calling in from work. I am coming down with something too. We are a house full of sickies. And heart breaks. I am hoping that the Zhu Zhu pets I bought the kids for Valentines will cheer them up this weekend. They have no idea yet so it should be exciting for them.

First pics are of last night writing the cards out. Last pic is my miserable and heart broken little sickling today.

Comfort during a storm

A couple of nights ago we decided on the spur of the moment to meet up with my aunt and uncle and have dinner at IHOP. It was supposed to start storming later in the evening but we still had a few hours to eat before the storm hit. We left at just the right time. It was starting to get very dark and windy on the drive home. We were about five minutes from the house when Macie started crying that her babies were scared at home by themselves and that we needed to get home.

We walked in the house about three minutes before the rain came crashing down. Once we were inside we began a mad hunt for Macie's babies. She couldn't find her monkey so that caused an all out panic on her part. We did eventually find her and then the kids started grabbing ALL of their "babies" and putting them on the couch with them. They said that they wanted to make sure their babies weren't scared during the storm.

This made my heart melt because I knew what they meant was that it would make sure THEY weren't scared. They just didn't want to admit it. So they piled all of their stuffed animals and dolls onto the couch with them to watch a movie. SOOOOO sweet and cozy.