Breakfast

Today is bitterly cold with the wind and low temperature so I decided to make breakfast for dinner. I have biscuits, turkey bacon, hashbrowns, eggs and fruit. My girls love it when I cook breakfast at dinner time. It is a special treat once in a blue moon. I usually make pancakes but I thought I would do biscuits this time. I like the Pilsbury Hungry Jack flakey. They separate into flakey layers. Grands are ok but I like the smaller, flakier biscuit. My girls love turkey bacon and I love Eggland eggs. I buy the Simply Potato Hashbrowns. They are found near the bacon at Walmart. You just add oil and cook.

This is our Friday night. A nice quiet evening in our warm and comfy home. It will be a fairly quiet weekend so that everyone can get well before the holidays.

Jello And Candy Corn At Breakfast

My girls are both on Augmentin. I don’t know if you have tasted it or smelled it but it is chaulky and gross. Both my girls gag every time they have to drink it.  They get a treat if they take the medicine and don’t spit it out. Pookie chose a candy corn and candy pumpkin. Peanut chose Jello. I feel bad they have to take such yucky things but I know they will feel much better when it is all over.

Invest in you

I love this title. My favorite blog is ohmommy, she wrote this post on investing in yourself. It is really good. If you leave her a comment by Sunday, you have a chance to win these awesome boots from crocs. Go to the link above to read the post and find out more details.

After reading the post, the challenge was trying to come up with something I do for myself. As a stay at home mom, I don’t think of myself very often. I put me on the back burner which is probably why I emotionally eat and I am over weight. The emotional eating part started a long time ago but I think I look at it as comfort and a friend. I do get my hair cut and styled once a quarter and I just invested in some nicer shampoo since my hair was really suffering. I had a conditioning treatment put on and my hair looks so much healthier and is not all dried out and dull looking.

A yes moment

While I was at the doctor’s office today, my peanut who talks way beyond her years was recognized by the pediatrician. She said, “wow! she is talking in full sentences.” I told her that the doctor she saw in September said she was on a three year old to four year old level in her speech. She agreed. These are the moments you go “yes.”

Every child is different. My pookie did not talk much for almost 2 1/2 years then she started talking in full sentences and has never stopped. Peanut started saying words at 2 months and I am not kidding. It is nice when what you see everyday at home is recognized by other people. You can say “oh my child talks so much” but until someone sees it, you think yeah right. These are the “yes” moments.

I also spoke with her about Peanut’s failed potty training attempt and she suggested waiting a while. She probably isn’t ready. I love our pediatricians. They are awesome. I have my moments when I get frustrated.

Ear Infections

Pookie has an ear infection too but peanut may just be on her way to being well. I do have a prescription for her in the event she is not better in a few days. Pookie is laying her head on my shoulder as I type. She is tired and does not feel well. I know she will be on the mend though. Ear infections are painful! Motrin has definitely helped.

The girls really enjoyed listening to a Charlie Brown Christmas. It is mostly instrumental and the girls were humming some of the song and really enjoyed it.

“Pre-empting FOCA”

Hey Bush has done a few things in his lame duck session. He made it more difficult for the Freedom of Choice Act to force all hospitals and OB/GYNs to perform abortions. Hotair has the complete scope on the ever changing rules and events.

Understanding God’s Calling upon our Church

Our Pastor preached a continuation on his message from last week on Obama and prayer for our nation. Apparently he came under heavy criticism for preaching the message on Obama. It helped me to remember to also pray for our pastors. I thought it was an awesome message and one that really ministered to me and brought correction where it needed to be brought. Unlike the troll that totally bashed me for something I wrote out of anger the week before. The troll has now been banished and should know you never catch flies with fire but with honey!

Understanding God’s Calling upon our Church

We have a lot of new people coming into our church all the time. Because of that, and the fact that we have about 98 different nations represented (and at least that many different opinions about every issue), I’ve been asking God what He would like to say to our church that would help bring us together. He answered by giving me a word about His calling on our church.
Every church has a unique calling; different churches are called to different things. I feel like God said there are five things that He’s specifically called this church to do.

We are called to be:

1. A church of reconciliation. Reconciliation means to bring something that has been divided or separated back together again. We are called to first reconcile lost people to God; and second, to reconcile people to each other (the part that has been left out of most churches). We are called to a life that is no longer about living for ourselves, but for others instead. As new creations, we no longer regard anyone according to the flesh, including their color! Everything we do now has to do with reconciling people to Christ and to each other. Honestly, there’s a lot to overcome to live that way. Too often, we just don’t get it…until we get a heart for reconciliation–seeking to understand, to see others’ perspectives, to reach across the barriers of separation and begin treating others, not based on what they have or haven’t done for us, but based on Jesus and His love for us. The only way to bring this kind of true reconciliation is through the blood of Jesus at work in our lives.
2. A church that preaches and lives according to the uncompromised Word of God. Unfortunately, there is a great void in the area of preaching the Word of God in the churches of America today. We’ve gotten more concerned with pleasing and attracting people. People don’t want to be challenged. But God’s Word has tremendous power to transform. If we want to experience that power, sometimes we need to be pierced, to hear things that we don’t want to hear from His Word.
3. A church that transforms the world around us. We have a dilemma today. We’re finding that rather than the church changing the world, the world is changing the church. Throughout history, whenever this has happened, the church has lost its influence in society. We’re called to be the salt and light of God in this world, but when we’re bickering and fighting, just like people in the world, we have no flavor, no transforming power.
4. A church that releases God’s will through prayer. If you’re one who has criticized our current president or our new president, it’s time to stop speaking words of death and start praying and speaking words of life. Things are not going to get better by speaking negatively about them. The more you pray for people, the nation, etc., the less critical you will become about them.
5. A church that models love and forgiveness. The number one message of Jesus in his life was forgiveness. That should be the main thing people get out of us when the meet/interact with us — regardless of how they treat us. We’re called to be an expression of God’s love. That means setting aside bitterness, resentment, offense and unforgiveness.

The message of our church is to bring people together so we can do the will of God. But, our enemy wants to divide and conquer us. To keep this from happening, we have to put our thoughts, opinions and feelings on the altar and pursue a heart of reconciliation. I’m calling on every one of you to put out the fires of division, strife and discord and to walk in love. If we can be that kind of church, imagine what kind of power we’ll have to bring transformation to our community!

Colds, colds and ear infections

Well, it started with Peanut, moved to Pookie, Husband and then me. I am better. Pookie is going to the doctor tomorrow because she is complaining of her ear hurting and she has green stuff in her nose. No fever but it has been a couple of weeks and she is prone to sinus infections. There is so much going around her class at school. Several children were out for a week or more due to croup, strep, ear infections. Peanut is better but still has a yucky nose. I am keeping an eye on her. She seems to feel better though. She typically does run fever so it is easier to tell.

Husband went to the doctor tonight after feeling yucky all day and we discovered he has a really nasty ear infection and sinus infection. Since we are without insurance for a few more weeks the doctor visit was $50 which is pretty cheap and the antibiotic was free. He specifically asked for this one because at Publix you can get some drugs for free. Thank you Lord!

It is crazy that this time of year is when all these nasty little bugs go around. We use our fair share of hand sanitizers and soaps. I think it is does help but my ultimate weapon is prayer. I pray every night against all sorts of illnesses and diseases. I used to just pray nothing would come nigh us but now I get specific after Pookie had a stomach virus or food posioning in January and we had to take her to the ER. We were there for 12 hours. She was so sick. She had to miss a week of school. So I definitely pray against specific illnesses now.

Faffles and Berries

This is what my two year old wanted today for breakfast. She loves “faffles and berries”. She takes the rasberries and puts them on her fingers to make rasberry fingers. She loves them. She can eat her weight in rasberries, blueberries and strawberries. I buy the ego low fat waffles and she eats one of those without syrup. The low fat waffles are made with multigrains and have half the calories and fat of regular waffles. It also has more protein if I am not mistaken.

She has not discovered syrup like my older daughter so I keep her away from it as long as I can. She just now discovered ketchup for hotdogs and hamburgers. Pookie did not want syrup until a year ago and she is 6. We only put a tiny bit on her cut up waffles. Pookie will still eat them plain too. They do eat some sweets but I try to limit their intake of sugar as much as I can.

My six year old eats raw pumkin. Peanut used to eat it but does not care for it now. It is a great source of fiber. Pookie loves it!

Mike Huckabee’s new book

Here is an article reviewing his new book. It looks interesting. He is coming to promote his new book at our church on the 30th. I think his book comes to a bookstore near you on Tuesday!