Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

So we just got done watching the movie Invictus and loved it! So I looked up the poem and I love the poem! It's so true! I think I'm going to go buy the book that the movie is based off of called Playing the Enemy. If you haven't seen the movie I would highly recommend it.

Being "Real"

Last night I was hanging out with some of my best friends and we got into this discussion about being real. It's so easy to look at someone and think they have it all together. People can put on a very good front, myself included. We talked about how much better it would be if we could just all be open and honest about our personal struggles. Wouldn't that be amazing?? I know for me a HUGE weight would be lifted off of my chest. I have people come up and tell me that they are just amazed with Jacob and I and our little family. I keep thinking if only you knew what was really going on. You wouldn't be jealous of us or have us on this high pedestal. There are times when it takes all I have to put on a happy face. And it's not because I have this need to look all perfect and with it. It's because I don't want people feeling sorry for me or drawing more attention to the problem. I wish we lived in a world where people weren't so judgmental and didn't try to fix everything that was broken (or in some cases not broken). We ALL have struggles, some a bigger than others. Some weigh heavier on the soul and break you much quicker. I look forward to the day when there will be peace again, where there won't be anyone judging me.

Someday hopefully soon this burden that we bare will be lifted and we won't have to deal with it anymore. My point in this post is to just say you NEVER know the full story of a persons life so don't put yourself down because some one appears to have it more together than you do. I know we are not alone in our struggle and whatever your struggle may be you are not alone either.

"Mommy, I'm hungry..."

Do you know how many times I hear those words in a day? I loose count after 20. So I had a thought of genius last night when I was laying in bed. I was so excited that I told Jacob about my idea and did he get as excited as I did?? Not even close. But that's okay. So here is my thought. Emma will get 2 snacks per day. One in between breakfast and lunch and one in between lunch and dinner. In order for Emma to keep track of what snack she's had I put snacks into a tupperware container and labeled them 1 and 2. She can have a morning snack from the 1 column and an afternoon snack from the number 2 column. I explained to her once she had eaten her morning snack there would be nothing else to eat until lunch and the same with her afternoon snack. I'm sure I'll have to repeat this a few times before she gets it but I think it's worth it. I put the container in the fridge where she can get to it. I'll probably changed up the snacks after she goes through these ones. I'm wanting to get her into eating more fruits and veggies for snacks instead of crackers and granola bars. We'll see how it goes.

Family Home Evening

Family Home Evening is one of those things that I have had a hard time incorporating into my weekly schedule. It's hit and miss with us and I've made a goal to make it a regular part of our family life (as of today actually). Growing up our family home evening lessons consisted of my dad preaching about some gospel topic which don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful thing to discuss the gospel, but let's face it... no kid wants to sit still for 30 minutes while being lectured about something.

I digress.. the point is is that I've been searching for interesting things to do with our little family that will teach the gospel and that Emma will sit through and retain something. I found this awesome book at Far West Book called Book of Mormon Family Home Evening: Lessons that Teach with Treats. I haven't been able to find it in MONTHS. It's in the house somewhere and I can't find it. Anyway we did a few lessons in it before I lost it. It has great lesson ideas for nursery/primary aged kids with the added bonus of a treat that totally corresponds to the lesson. It was $9.95 and I think totally worth it. I'm sure they have it at Deseret Book too.

There are a bunch of books out there with lesson ideas for varying ages of children and even some for single people. I also found this list of 119 FHE ideas on the web. Some of them are pretty cool and others I would never do. The website has other cool things on it too including some lesson ideas. Google has tons of website that opo up when you google FHE lesson ideas. Some are great and some are not so great of course.

As for us tonightI haven't nailed down a lesson yet but I do have the treat. I call it dump cake but I'm sure it has many other names. Here's what you do:

Grease a 9x13 pan. Dump 1 or 2 cans of your favorite pie filling (mine is cherry) into the pan. Sprinkle one yellow cake mix over the top. Melt 2 cubes of butter and pour it over the top of the cake mix. Sprinkle some nuts over the top and also some shredded coconut if you want. Bake at 350 for an hour. You can also put whipped cream on top after it's baked.

I flipping love this cake! It's really good!

If you guys have a favorite FHE lesson/ activity or a favorite treat let me know! Hopefully today will be the first of many consistent FHE's to come in our house!

One Year Anniversary

Our last Christmas with Grandma, 2007. In the back: My dad, his brother Dave, their brother in law Timm. Next row: My brother Kaleb, Me and Emma my Aunt Sandra. Next rowish My mommy, my cousin Lisa, Grandma my cousin Erik, Grandpa. In the very front: my cousin Logan. Missing from the picture are Jacob and my brother Tyler

Today is the one year anniversary of my Grandma's death. I'm doing fine with it. I know that she is in a much better place than this and that she is with her parents and brother that died. She was such a huge factor in my life and I learned a lot from her.

I remember walking into her house during the summer and her not letting me in until I solved a simple multiplication problem. I had had trouble with them in 3rd grade and she wanted to make sure she was doing her part to help me learn them.

Her and grandpa would always buy Poulsbo bread (it came in an orange bread bag). I would always make a cheese sandwich for lunch when I would go over. The sandwich was miracle whip and Tillamok cheese.

Grandma and Grandpa would take my brother Tyler and I out to eat a lot (we spent a lot of time over at there house growing up since my mom worked) and she would always get on us to cut our food, take smaller bites, sit up straight, GET YOUR ELBOW OFF THE TABLE, slow down, are you tasting that food at all or are you swallowing it whole? I still hear her voice in my head when I eat reminding me of the proper etiquette.

I wish everyone could grow up with such an amazing influence in their lives. I love you Grandma.

So grateful and yet so tired

This week Jacob has been working 11-13 hour days! He only got 15 hours last week but this week he will have enough that that won't matter. He's going to have steady work for the next couple months unless the rig breaks (knock on wood). I'm so grateful that he is finally working and making some actual money!

On the other hand... Emma has become quite accustom to having him at home. He is so good with her and plays with her, takes her for walks, and is just really goofy with her. Between he and I, Emma always had someone trying to entertain her. This week has been horrible with her because Jacob has gone back to work. She is acting up really bad! She's colored on my new kitchen bench, mixed dog food with powdered milk and whole wheat, gotten into my hair gel and smeared it all over, dumped Annie's water out all over the kitchen floor, dumped all my yeast into the bowl when I was trying to make pizza dough the other night, gotten into the bandaids and placed them all over everything, thrown flour all over the kitchen floor and dog and sprayed spray and wash all over the laundry room (which I still can't figure out how she keeps getting it down from my hiding place).

Yesterday I had pretty much had enough. I was an emotional wreck. She woke up at 6 wanting pancakes and being quite the little bossy boss about it. Then she proceeded to be clingy and whiny the whole day and get into trouble as I was trying to clean/ do laundry etc. Poor Jacob came home to no dinner on the table, and a sobbing wife. I feel bad for him looking back on yesterday. I've been SUPER emotional lately and he's had to deal with it. Lucky for him he gets to go to work and take a break! I think I just need a vacation!

Anyway, I have just realized that Jacob does way more for me than I know. He is my other half and such a great support to me. This period of acting out with Emma should go away in the next few days and we will be back to normal again. We kept praying for more work for Jacob and have been blessed GREATLY. For that (and many other things) I am grateful.

How to store what you eat.

Okay, I really hate to beat a dead horse but these last 4 months have been so freaking nuts! Jacob has worked probably the equivalent of a month (hours wise) out of the last 4. We had to make some big changes to our lifestyle and thankfully not too much in our diet. This experience has taught me what to keep in my cupboard when something like this happens again and also little tricks to stretch the things you have. I thought I'd share my new found knowledge in hopes of easing your burdens at some later time or perhaps right now.

During this time of financial hardship I have learned the importance of storing what you eat. We have a weekly grocery budget of $70/week when times aren't tough. That's a lot of money to spend on 3 people in one week. BUT, half of the money I allotted for the weekly groceries was used in buying duplicate non-perishable ingredients of the recipes I was making that week. I would then put those items in the pantry for another time. Now I did this subconsciously. I had no clue that I was storing away for some future date (blonde moment I know). The only reason why we had odds and ends ingredients these last 4 months was because I had created a surplus of them.

What exactly did we store? Well, we really love pizza so I would store pineapple, tomato sauce, Italian seasoning to mix with the tomato sauce to make pizza sauce, olives, hamburger and Canadian bacon. I also froze shredded cheese. So we were able to make pizza almost every week instead of buying it. It didn't really feel like a sacrifice because we still had the luxury of pizza.

I make a lot of chili too so I would store canned kidney beans, diced tomatoes, cumin, chili powder (costco is an excellent place to get these spices), and again hamburger. I also stored the boxes of corn bread mix.

We really like Mexican food too. So I would store refried beans, stewed tomatoes to make Spanish rice and of course rice, taco seasoning (from costco) and HAMBURGER. We then would make Navajo Fry bread to eat with our rice and beans and to make a kind of taco with.

We also had boxes of jello, pudding, popcorn, and mac and cheese (for Emma). I also kept on hand in the freezer hot dogs, pedialyte pop sickles (in case one of us got sick), frozen veggies, and frozen juice concentrates.

For breakfasts I had stored lots of oatmeal, Zoom, malt o meal, Cheerios (from costco) and some frozen bacon.

We also had diaper wipes and diaper rash ointment for Emma.


Things I wish I had more of stored before this happened to us:

Boxed desserts that don't require the use of eggs
Powdered milk
Canned fruit
Cereal
Diapers
Diaper wipes
Shampoo and Conditioner
Hair gel
hand soap
cleaning products
laundry soap
dishwasher soap
garbage bags

Tricks to stretch what you already have:
Use powdered milk when you cook or bake. You can't taste the difference.

Make up rice as a side dish for casseroles. It will stretch it farther.

One egg sized mound of mayo is a good substitute for an egg in baking. I used it to make corn bread and you can't taste the difference.

Either learn to make your own bread or buy a bread machine.

Whole wheat is more filling.


If Jacob and I didn't have food storage, there is no way we would've made it through this rough time. Having a savings account is a must too. We are recommended to have 6 months of our income stored away. Jacob and I had 3.

Right when this slow period started Jacob and I realized that we were behind on our tithing. How it happened? I'm not really sure. But we caught up with our tithing despite not having any money. It was hard for me to do. Jacob has never had a problem paying tithing and I learned about the great blessings of being a full tithe payer no matter what. We are just now having to pull out of our savings account. What's even more amazing is that the amount we have to pull out is only $500.

We were certain that our savings would be drained after all of this. The lord keeps his promises! There is no way we should've made it through this hard time without taking tons of money out of savings. It is strictly the Lord's blessing that we have only had to take out a little money and it's because we strived to do the right things. We aren't perfect. We still have a lot of work to do on saving money and building food storage and other aspects of our lives, but we tried our hardest and by the grace of God we have made it.

Dissapointment yet again/ A yummy recipe

Well, we thought Jacob was going to have work this week. He went into work yesterday only to turn around and come home. Apparently the work that was suppose to take 40 hours to complete took 2 people 4.5 hours. So, we play the waiting game. He will definitely have work next week out on the site. It will be 60+ hours a week for a while which means $$$$$$$$$$! For the time being I will continue to look for subbing jobs this week but with no school yesterday or Friday, the chances of me finding work aren't good. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and we keep waiting for it to come closer only for it to get pushed farther away from us.

Moving on to this weeks recipe. I'm so hungry for everything lately. This recipe is so amazing! I got it from my Taste of Home Cookbook. It's called Cashew Chicken. Usually when I make a recipe that has a picture my end result looks nothing like the picture. This is the first ever recipe I've made that looks as great as the picture and tastes AMAZING! I haven't been able to figure out a good side dish for this recipe. Maybe an oriental salad? I also forget that you need to marinate the chicken for 2 hours before you actually start cooking. If you have one of those vacuum sealers for food, then you can marinate it for less time.

Cashew Chicken

(Taste of Home)

1Tbs sesame oil

¼ c rice wine vinegar

¼ c sherry or 3 T chicken broth and 1 T apple juice

1 tsp garlic powder

1 ½ pounds chicken, cubed

3 Tbs. oil

3 c broccoli florets

1 c thinly sliced carrots

2 tsp cornstarch

1/3 c soy sauce

1/3 c hoisin sauce

1 Tbs. ground ginger

1 c roasted salted cashews

Hot Cooked Rice

In a large bowl, combine oil, vinegar, sherry, and garlic powder; add chicken and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Remove chicken from marinade and reserve marinade. Heat oil in a wok or large skillet. Stir-fry chicken for 2-3 minutes or until it is no longer pink. With a slotted spoon, remove chicken and set aside.

In the same skillet, stir-fry broccoli and carrots for 3 minutes or just until crisp-tender. Combine cornstarch, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, ginger and reserved marinade; stir into vegetables. Cook and stir until slightly thickened and bubbly. Stir in cashews and chicken. Heat through. Serve over rice. Yield: 6 servings

Happy

This week started out pretty sucky. Monday was the worst teaching day I have ever had. I never did gain control of either class I subbed in. Tuesday I had off and then the rest of the week was spent teaching some of the best kids I've ever taught. I taught 4th grade on Wednesday, Worked in a Resource Room Thursday (which is THE best job in the whole school), and then taught in a 3rd grade class this morning and a 4th grade class this afternoon. I absolutely love teaching! It was such a nice end to the week today and I'm sad that I have to quit teaching for a while. Jacob finally has work to do in the office next week! We are so excited for him to make some money. He makes twice as much as I do subbing in a day. It will be nice to have a steady income finally.

I am excited that my mother in law will be coming for 2 weeks in February to watch Emma so I can teach again and bring some more money in before this little bundle of joy pops out of me! (At least I'm hoping it pops out and doesn't have to be cut out!). Then on the 20th of March my little brother comes home from his mission. April is mine and Jacob's 4th anniversary and in May hopefully we will have a little one to occupy our time.

There is just so much going on for the next 4-5 months and I'm excited for all of it. I feel like a little kids that so anxious for Christmas or the first day of school.

Emma is on her way home right now and I can't wait to snuggle her again. The break away from her has been nice, needed and financially necessary but I'm ready for my baby to come home. These last couple of weeks Jacob and I have gotten a taste of what life would've been like for us without Emma. It was kinda fun. I'm not going to lie about that but Emma has just made us better people. As parents we give so much of ourselves to our children and it seems like we won't get anything back. I've realized these last couple weeks that Emma gives Jacob and I so much! It's in the little hugs and kisses and her excitement when she learns something new. It's when she wakes up in the morning and comes in our room and wants to snuggle up and read stories. And it's when she says her prayers and tells us how much she loves us. I've realized that I need to stop looking for the big things and be thankful for all the small things. The small things add up really quickly when you start to think about them.

I've also come to realized all the small things Jacob does for me. Last night while I was teaching piano he cleaned up the dinner dishes. He rubs my back when he gets home from work and before we go to bed at night. He washes and folds the laundry for me. There are just so many little things that he does through out the day and week that make me love him even more.

I feel so blessed in my life. Even trough trials and financial hardships, I have amazing people in my life who are a blessing in and of themselves. I'm so thankful to all of you for your kindness and love. I have some of the most amazing friends and family in the world!

I hope that this wasn't too random. Lately my thoughts all run together and my emotions are all over the place. Thanks for bearing with a crazy hormonal pregnant lady!