Truly Thankful

I feel so incredibly thankful to have so many wonderful blessings! Last year I did a list of 100 things I was thankful for, but, I'm going to have to go to bed in just a few. So, here are a few of the wonderful blessings that I thank God for:

-Husband
-Baby M
-Family
-Foster Parenting
-Friends
-New Jobs (me and Josh both) this year
-Staying in Oklahoma
-Staying in our house
-Church family
-Food
-Cars
-Health
-Clothes
-Overcoming challenges
-Seeing God's plan revealed


Happy Thanksgiving! May we all be reminded of the tremendous blessings we have in our lives.

Birthday Boy

Last weekend we headed down to Texas for Josh's b-day to kick off a week of birthday celebrations. We spent Friday and Saturday night with his parents in Wichita Falls and Saturday his parents kept M so we could drive down to Dallas for the day and celebrate by ourselves! It was our first time to spend an entire day by ourselves since we've had little girl! We had breakfast at Atlanta Bread, went to a huge book store, went to the Dallas Museum of Art, shopped at a mall and ate some yummy food (all day!!). Even though we missed M a lot, it was so nice to have time to ourselves and talk about other things than feedings, naps and poop!

Monday M gave her present to Daddy. It was a Bob Dylan book for children and she even begged me to let her sign it with her footprint:) Tuesday I gave Josh his presents when I got home from book club. Wednesday was the big day! We had a breakfast of chocolate sprinkled donuts...yum! Then, we went and had our traditional Mexican birthday lunch with the other 2 b-day girls! We went out for a family (the 3 of us) birthday lunch on Friday to Qdoba...one of our new favorites! I don't know about Josh, but I sure had fun celebrating his birthday!!

Tonight

Tonight was my first night to be at home without some activity, etc. since Tuesday night at last week! It has been a busy time the past week with girls nights, church, a trip to Texas (post to come soon), etc! So I tackled a few projects that have been on my list! One project will be blogged about after Christmas. The picture above is of my first attempt to make a Christmas stocking. This one is for M! Josh and I have black Target stockings, so this will be a little different and add some pattern, plus it only cost about $3 max. to make! This is no where near perfect, but does the job! Sadly, the trim is a little uneven, but oh well! I wanted to get this done so that I can start decorating for Christmas after Thanksgiving, which is next week!!!! Crazy!!

The other pic is of M sitting in her new Bumbo (thanks Gene and Pam!) and watching her daddy play guitar! She LOVES watching Josh play! She pretty much does that every night!

Happy Birthday to a few of my favorite people!!!

Three of my favorite people share the same birthday today!!!

Happy Birthday, Joshy!!! You are an amazing husband, father, friend and companion! I am so blessed to have you in my life! Thank you for making life fun!!!! I thank God for you every day!!! I know your 26th year of life was full of lots of ups and downs and quite a few challenges, but I am amazed to see how you've trusted in God and continued to persevere through all of the unknowns we've faced this past year! I love you, babe!! Happy 27th!!!

Happy Birthday, Mom! Thank you for being such a fun and supportive mother and friend! I am so blessed to have such a wonderful mom! You are such a beautiful and talented woman! Thank you for always taking time to invest in our relationship, from pulling me out of school for fun lunch and shopping trips to our current regular lunch dates. You are so fun to be around!! Happy ____Birthday:) I love you!

Happy Birthday, Viv! I can't believe a year has already past!! I can't remember our family without you in it! You are a precious niece! You light up the room with your beautiful big blue eyes, wonderful smile and your new little princess wave!! We love you so much and are so happy you are in our family! We are excited to watch you grow up! We love you!! Happy 1st Birthday!!

Blown Away!!!

I just got home from what I thought was our church class' girls night out. Which it was (and, it was very fun, btw), BUT, it was also a surprise baby shower for me, M, and our future foster babies! I am completely blown away!! I was completely surprised!!! When they yelled "surprise" as I walked through the door, it didn't even cross my mind that it was anything for me! In fact, I thought they were being sarcastic, since I was actually fairly late (thanks, Erin:)). So, they totally pulled it off!!!

It never crossed my mind to have a baby shower, much less from people that I have only been at church with for 5 1/2 months! It makes me teary at the thought of how wonderful these girls are and how close I have grown to so many of them over the past few months! They have been such a support to us as we transitioned into new jobs, a new church and parenthood, since June! I am so grateful for the friendship and support they have given us! You know who you are!! Thank you SOOO much!!!

When M wakes up, I'll be excited to show her all of her wonderful new things!!! She got cute clothes, TONS of diapers/wipes, toys, baby gear, accessories, diaper genie, gift cards and MORE!!! I know she'll love every bit of it!

Thank you all so much!!!!

Quick and Easy

I've been pulling out the easy recipes in my repertoire lately! So, I thought I'd share. The first one is "white trash". This isn't necessarily and original recipe, but one that I love and it is the easiest ever!! I've been trying to name it more thematically lately. So, you have "Skeleton Crunch" or "Snow Crunch", etc.

White Trash

Melt Almond Bark and stir in Crispix or Chex cereal and broken pretzels until lightly coated. Add as much as needed to lightly coat. Stir in M&Ms until coated. Spread onto waxed paper. Allow to cool and then break in to smaller pieces. Put in a canister with a scoop and it's ready to serve!

The recipe below is what we're having for dinner tonight. I'm serving it with roasted vegetables and salad.


Tomato Chicken
1 can diced tomatoes (regular or seasoned...if cooking more than 4 chicken breasts, use 2 cans)
Frozen chicken breasts (2 to 4)
1/2 can water
salt
pepper
minced garlic
onion powder

Put chicken breasts in crockpot. Pour tomatoes and water over chicken. Season with salt, pepper, minced garlic and onion powder. Cook on low for approximately 4 hours, or until done. Serve with veggies and a salad and/or over rice or noodles.