Ragtag Mama

Here are photos from Jan 10th when we celebrated Chris’ Mom’s Birthday and Ephriam’s Birthday together at one party:

Ephriam’s Snake cake. Didn’t turn out too bad.

Kendra and Luke. I love this picture of them it is SO cute!

Up close and personal with Kendra

The Birthday Kids.

Ephriam and his cold hard cash.

Grandma and her book.

Ephriam opening presents

UNO moo! Is a great game to learn colors with.

Grandma and more gifts.

Gotta love the Vera Bradley!

All of the kids couldn’t wait to play with Ephriam’s Castle. It is one gift he plays with A LOT!

Not to scare those of you who read my blog regularly,  but I have been tracking who is coming to my blog through Google Analyitcs.  I love to see which people visit not just from the United States but from all over the world. I love to see that people from my home town are my biggest hitters and next would be the area that I live. It is cool see where else in the world hits me up. I like too that it shows me if you got to my blog through Facebook or Twitter. So if you have a blog and are interested in knowing who all comes to your site,  I would recommend Google Analytics to you.

Most people go through Chris’ blog to get to my blog and I am cool with that. I love that he and I can be a team together and send people to each other sites.  I need to get on the ball with the kids’ blog to let people know what is up with them. I have been too busy dealing with them at home or looking things up for them on the internet. Like, Chris and I are looking at going to Disney World with them in Dec 2011 and have been looking to see what the cost would look like for us. I will get there don’t worry kiddos.

The only thing that I haven’t liked is when I have changed my theme on wordpress it messes Google Analytics up. I think however my husband has now fixed it so that that won’t happen.

So how about you. Do you used Google Analytics or anything else to track visitors to your site? I would be interested to hear from you.

The basement is finished. The furniture has been found from under the mountain of things. Now it is time to get everything back to where it belongs and/or find a home for it. We are also getting rid of more stuff. We are giving all of it away. Things that we used at one time that we now are not. Getting rid of some baby things that we have. Getting rid of toys that are no longer played with or won’t be played with again.

I know that we started this last year and we thought that we were close do having it done when the basement flooded. However now that we have moved things around we still feel like we have a lot more to get rid of.

Tonight while Chris was watching 24 I removed almost everything that didn’t belong in our bedroom. There are still somethings to go but because the kids are in bed and I don’t want to wake them,  but there is a box waiting to go out. Sure there is still a lot more to go out but it is a start. I can’t wait till EVERYTHING has a home.

So this week since I don’t have  to work till the end of the week, I am starting to take back my house. I am slowly working on it and know that it will take Chris and I long time to get there but we will.

If you have any tips on making this process easier or organizational thing that are cheap but work well let me know. I would love to hear from you.

All of them. Mondays that is are manic. I run the kids to school, back home to regroup after the weekend, pick the kids up from school, home for lunch, then to speech therapy, then back home for about 45 minutes, then off again to school and finally home for school to head almost straight to bed. I am looking forward to the end of this term because I will then things will slow down after therapy. I won’t have to run off to class again on Mondays. I am sure too that both my kids will enjoy me being home more too.  I am just taking a self defense karate type class on Wednesdays. I will be home every night to tuck my kids in on nights when I am not working. Hopefully too I will be able to get them to poop in the potty. This seems to be difficult for them lately. Well I need to get going because I need to finish getting ready for the rest of the mania.

FW

That is my hope for this week. The past few weeks have been unpredictable so I am looking forward to having more routine weeks ahead. This past week Chris worked from home twice and the kids didn’t have school for the last 2 days of the week. This week I hope that our only change is getting ready to do Christmas with my mom, dad, brother and future sister-in-law and going to a wedding. Other than that is should be more routine.

Tonight we are having Chris’ family over to celebrate Ephriam and Chris’ mom’s birthdays. We have a great menu planned and it is always fun to get together with everyone. We will miss Chris’ sister and her family as they won’t be able to join us. This also gives us the opportunity to show of Chris’ hard work in the basement. We are hoping to spend most of our time down there when we have gatherings. We will probably come upstairs to eat dinner at the table but it will be nice to just have the extra space again.

I am still in shock that my first born is FIVE! He is growing up so much before my very eyes. He is growing more and more independent of me everyday. He is doing more and more things on his own. I can’t wait to watch him grow more and more everyday. He works so hard to do certain things that sooner or later will be routine things for him. God has shown me a lot of things through him and I am sure I will learn more and more. Happy Belated Birthday my lil’ man.

FW

So I was finally able to pick a new theme for my blog. I know that some people aren’t going to like that the background is dark with white letters but I really love the rainbow.  I love how colorful it is. I also like that it has a tree in it to remind me of my word Growth from last year.

My next step is to get some pictures up. I know I know I keep saying that, but really I have to be at home and have almost nothing else to do in order to get the pictures up. Since my kids were home an extra hour today my time to do things without them home has been limited. Chris is also working from home today so that the carpet can be install in the basement so that I can drop off and pick up the kids from school and still have someone here.

Part of me is hoping for a call off tonight from work. I would love to stay at home and get something done. Mostly because by 5pm today my carpet in the basement will be done being installed! I am hoping that by Sunday we will have a lest some seating unburied from the pile of heap. We will see though.

For now I need to go get the kids from school. I am sure they will be excited about being able to come downstairs now too.

I am sorry for the double post on “I am still here mostly” It seems that when Chris updated Wordpress to the newest version that it finally posted my scheduled post. So for those of you who follow me on Twitter I am sorry!

I finally after several months of stop and go reading have finished reading Mark Batterson’s  Wild Goose Chase! If you know me, you know that I don’t read many books outside of my Bible and school books. However since my school work is all done and I have had some down time at work I was able to take advantage of it.

Mark says in his book that he prayed for every person who reads this book in reading it at the right time in their life. Well Mark, I know that even though this has been intermitten reading that each time I have picked it up I have wanted to throw it back down because I know that God has used your words to impact my life. It is just like when Christopher and I started dating.. scary and cool.

The thing that suck out the most to me in reading this was on page 138 when Mark says “The longer you wait, the more you appreciate.”  Since I feel like I have been waiting forever to finish school I do think that I appreciate ‘the end is near’ more then I would have 10 years ago when I was fresh out of high school. Not only that but I appreciate the experiences that I have had that I might not have had if I was done in school when I was suppose to.

Right now I feel that Chris and I, along with the kids, are Chasing the Goose. Right now though we are just waiting for the door to close or one to open. I reality I am sure that we are waiting on something, yet that something has not yet been revealed to any of us. I also know that there is A LOT to be accomplished between now and the open or closed door. Of course in the end, it will totally be worth the wait.

I am looking forward to starting Marks’ first book In The Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day as part of a small group series we will be doing. I am sure that God will give me more and more tips on this waiting process.

Thanks Mark for sharing your heart in your book. I know for me it has made the waiting maybe a little easier and more adventurous.

FW

So last year I picked the word GROWTH for my word. And the verse of Ephesians 4:15. I Really enjoyed doing this so I decided to do it again this year.

For 2010 I picked the word wait or waiting and he verse Psalms 130:5 “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope”

I know you are wondering why “wait”? Well I really feel like that is where I am at now. I am waiting for things to happen. I am waiting to get into clinicals at school, I am waiting to finish school, I am waiting on something to happen to cause people to call us crazy: like Chris to take some weird job that most people wouldn’t think he can do for, and I am waiting on Ephriam’s total healing. I just feel like there is something HUGE coming in around the corner and I am just waiting for it to happen.  Just waiting. Yep and I really feel that the verse fits too. I have total hope that God is going to do as he says he will and that right now I just need to wait. So after looking at several verses I this one stuck out the most to me.

So are you with me? Are you waiting on something too?

Did you pick a word for this year? If so tell which one and why?

As for the pictures that I wanted to posted, Well I haven’t been able too. I hope to soon but dang work has gotten in my way.

I do have so say though that the start of 2010 has been better then the start of 2009, mostly because I am not stuck with my head in the toilet! I will have a final post of wrapping up 2009 and how I feel I did with the Growth hopefully early tomorrow. Depends again on work!Also I will be choosing a new blog theme, so don’t be surprised if it doesn’t appear the same.

Happy New Year!

Another month and half has gone by since I have blogged.  Life has really got me will barely enough time to sleep right now, let alone to blog. I am hoping that January is a little slower so that there might be some more post to update you with.  Mostly as a personal outlet for me. I love still here at the computer and dumping share my life with all of you. I know I have had fewer hits to the blog since I am not blogging as much. I am hoping too by the end of January when my State Tested Nursing Assistant Training (STNA) class ends that things will be better too. For right now I am running Ephriam to therapy once a week for speech and once every other week for OT, taking the kids back and forth from school, working 3 nights a week, going to school 2 nights a week, keeping the kids out of my husbands hair as he, his brother, and his dad work on refinishing our basement by themselves. I will post pictures when it is all done, on Jan. 5.  Next year at this time I hope things aren’t this crazy and that we can have a relaxing December. For now we are just hanging in there and taking it day by day.  One thing at a time. This week I will get to be at home all week. There isn’t much to do but play with the kids and keep them going pee and poopy in the potty. Which there should be an updated post on the kids’ blog too. I am working on the New Years Goals.  I say goals because really that is what they are I am not resolving to be a new person just trying to get things done. I also know what my word is for next year too. You will just have to see what it is on New Years day along with my verse and of course a new theme for my blog.  So tomorrow I am hoping to have some pictures posted of events through the year.  It really depends on how nap time goes with the kids.  Leave me a comment and let me know how you are doing. Thanks.

FW