4th of July Weekend 2011

This past weekend was great!!! We went bowling with the few youth that were able to come. David, Travis, and Kyle. As I have said, we had a couple in our youth group break up so it has affected a couple of our girls not being there. As well as some other faithfuls didn't get to come. We still had fun and after bowling they came to our house and we grilled out hamburgers and hot dogs. The night before we also saw a fireworks show from our front porch coming from Oaklawn Race Track.

On the 3rd, we had a great service and then no evening service that pm so we got together with John and Crystal and cooked out at their house and let the kids play. Of course, it was a good time.

Monday, the 4th, we got up and all watched Rapunzel since Crystal let us borrow it. Then we all decided to go as a family to Entergy Park at Lake Hamilton. I had not yet been there yet and it was GORGEOUS. Beautifully set on the lake and surprisingly it wasn't crowded. Grace threw rocks in the lake and we walked a little of the trails and went to the playground. It was hot, so we left there and picked up a pizza and went home and made HOMEMADE Ice Cream in our ice cream freezer. Then later a nice walk with our big dog, Bud. It was a GREAT Day!

I will share some pics as well as the recipe..

This was only our 2nd attempt to make ice cream in it since we got it last year, I think, and it was GREAT. I found the recipe on allrecipes.com and used strawberries as my fruit. I loved the recipe because it doesn't call for eggs so no pre-cooking the raw eggs and cooling before putting in the ice cream freezer. Next time, I may just make it without the fruit in it and then it would be just vanilla and have a 'ice cream bar' with your choice of fruits, broken up cookies, candy bars, etc. If you make it as is, it will have frozen bits of fruit in it. Or you could puree the fruit and put it in there to get the full fruit ice cream taste.

Fruited Ice Cream

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Prep Time:
45 Min
Ready In:
45 Min

Original Recipe Yield 1 gallon

Ingredients

* 2 (14 ounce) cans sweetened condensed milk
* 5 cups milk
* 2 cups heavy cream
* 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 3 cups chopped strawberries

Directions

1. Combine condensed milk, milk, cream, vanilla, salt and fruit in freezer canister of ice cream maker. Freeze according to manufacturer's directions.








By the way.. Grace took this next pic of Adam and I. Is that not awesome!! :)

Domestically Older

It's funny we are on the house subject... Because I have something on my mind that totally relates. I have always kept my house pretty straight. Even growing up, I kept my room picked up, etc. etc. Although, I turned 30 not too long ago and I have noticed how I feel more convicted over being especially good at being a housewife as well as a part-time work outside the home wife. I used to could skip days without making up the bed, many, actually to be exact, and it didn't really bother me. I could leave the house without everything mostly in it's place and not think twice about it. Now, I feel the need to ALWAYS make up my bed (except the days I leave for work so early, Adam wakes up after me). Grace also, has learned that her toys MUST be put back before we leave the house to go anywhere, before naps, and before bedtime. I am quiet proud of this, because she has learned herself to be neat. Not only inside, but the outside.

Now, this is not to say my house is perfect in no way. You are bound to find some random every day things laying around in my house and the tub may not be spotless at all times but I can't stand for it to get nasty.

In addition to house cleaning, I have a gained a new interest in cooking. I have always enjoyed cooking. I never have cooked as much as I wanted due to the beginning of our marriage, we didn't have the money to buy the groceries to cook so we ate the cheapest convenience foods that we could find and LOTS of sandwiches. We might have one cooked meal a week. Back then, my Mom fed us a lot!!! :) After that, when we did have money, I cooked more at times, but then it was just Adam and I so not a ton. After having Grace, I really haven't cooked enough variety of food. I feel somewhat to blame for her eating ways. I got tired of cooking her foods for her to spit out and then it be trashed. So I stuck to very few faithfuls. Now, I am realizing that we all need some more variety in our life as well as healthier foods. I have liked allrecipes.com but I now have discovered their free app on my iphone and love it! So my new hobby is to look at all kinds of recipes on my phone, read reviews, put in my favorites list, and make them. I am going to try a Mexican Nacho chicken casserole tonight. We'll see!! So far so good!

Now.. it's home

As I said in my last post we finished painting the entire house. As you all probably know we are renting this house here in Hot Springs. When we got it every wall in the house was white, dirty, and definitely needed help. We wanted the house painted but the landlord agreed to reduce our monthly rent if we painted it ourselves. She specified only in neutral colors. So that is the reason for sticking to just two neutral colors throughout the house. Needless to say, after all the work and time, it looks SO much better and we are happy to have gotten it done!

These pics give you the idea. Nothing grand... just a cute rental that has a really great culdesac lot that is EASY to live in. Also, very close to our work, church, etc. So we are happy and thankful for our find!

FYI, we now have some pictures to hang on the wall in the guest room but they are not up yet in these pics. Also, some of the pics came from my iphone so not as clear.

Moving Along

Everything is coming together now. We finally finished painting this house the beginning of last week. It is SO much better and it was good to get that done! (I will post pictures next time). My job is also going better. I guess I am getting used to it more and how things are done here and getting use to the people as well as everyone comfortable with me too. I try to get (2) 12 hour shifts a week. I got canceled once last pay period due to low census. But for the most part, I have been able to get these needed hours, even if it means work for some one else. I still really like day shift. Of course, it is much busier than night shift, and you have to deal with lots of things but the payoff is being on a REGULAR sleep and wake clock! I've always said that night shift SHOULD be more laid back and not as busy because of the heck your body goes through just being on that time clock. I love not having to take 2 of my days for sleep/ work for one actual day of work. I also just love coming home in the evenings after my shift and being DONE! No having to go to sleep before I can function to do ANYTHING!

... So I am thankful!

We are also getting some great experience already in these first three months of church ministry. With events, every day life in ministry, sicknesses, drama (with our youth (boyfriend and girlfriend) :) and just keeping every thing going, etc. etc. Opportunities for my self to teach, etc. also have been great and the connections we are making! This Saturday we are having a pre-4th celebration with our youth by going bowling and then all coming back to our house and grill out. We are also looking at some other big worship events and overnight events for our youth for the rest of the year. Money is an issue though at our church, so we have to plan wisely and we will see.

As for Adam's job at Lifeway, he isn't getting very many hours. They are cutting every one's hours due to sales are not good at this new store they have opened. Hence, he is looking for another job due to this:/

We are very thankful that we have a WONDERFUL sitter for Grace from our church when needed. We call her Mrs. Kallie and she has been so great to Grace and Grace absolutely adores her! She is super available when we need her and I am amazed at the time and energy that she invests in Grace when she is at her house. She cooks with Grace, reads to her, teaches her all kinds of things, and just gets her to help in any way with stuff around the house.

A couple of pics with Kallie, our friend and Grace's sitter :)




On my off days, Grace and I continue to take advantage of the park, her pool, just playing outside, and spending time with friends. It's a must for us to get out and do something!!:) Our absolute favorite park so far.. Hollywood Park. We discovered a really huge creek that runs through it.

Beating the Heat

Last Wednesday evening after VBS wrapped up last Tuesday night, our church took a break from Wed. night service and we decided to get together with John and Crystal and their family at our house. We grilled out hamburgers and hot dogs and let Josiah swim with Grace in her kiddie pool and they brought a splash pool that they both loved too. It is so fun to watch them giggle and squeal playing in the water. (Baby) Zoe even dipped her feet in. Very thankful for their friendship!!







This past Saturday, we decided to do something really fun that we haven't yet done around Hot Springs. We decided to go to Lake Ouachita and went to one of their beaches. We were very pleasantly surprised when smack into Amber and Paul La Caze and their kids.. Isaac and Abby. Amber is also expecting another baby soon. Paul helps with the youth at our church and Abby is one of Grace's very best friends at our church. She JUST loves her!!! So Grace was so happy to see them too. They are so much fun to be around and we ended up spending the afternoon at the Lake with them. We left their and ate at their favorite Mexican restaurant that is close to there. It was just a WONDERFUL day and the beach and the water was GREAT!!! The water was pretty clean and warm too.











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VBS 2011

I am going to take a minute to publicly affirm my husband!!:) Most of the volunteers for this year's VBS had already been established before we got to Leonard St. Besides that, Adam organized meetings, and all of the rest of VBS and it went great!! We had 25 kids and that is good considering we have about 75 people at our church on a given Sunday and we had a couple of families that were out of town with kids, etc. Everything went very smoothly and are hoping that a couple of the families will continue to come. I am very thankful for the opportunities that this church is giving Adam and us to lead the kids, youth, and their families. We are looking at more plans for the youth through the rest of the year. We will see..:)

God's Little Princess

Grace is into EVERYTHING princess. She loves the princess movies, princess toys and her favorite gift I think ever is this princess accessories gift from Nana that has earrings, high heels, necklace, ring, wand, and crown with a carrying case. From the time she wakes up most mornings she is ready to put her princess jewelry on and pretends her gown is a princess dress or wants to dress up. Daddy immediately becomes the King or the prince depending on the day and I am the queen. She has play dress up things for us too! :)

Wearing it..




She is so crazy about being a princess that she wants her hair a certain way, she will panic if her fingernail or toenail polish starts flaking off and wants me to repaint them immediately. She was even getting very upset if her hair was "messed up", etc. etc. So we starting trying to teach her that what makes her beautiful is what is on the INSIDE. The princess stuff is great and so much fun but we wanted to put a little perspective on it. So we found this 4 book set at Lifeway and got it on sale..




If you haven't heard about Gigi. It is a cute Christian princess book and movie series. I just love this because the books talk about how we are God's children and God is the King of all Kings so to be a daughter of The Great King, we are God's Little Princess'. It teaches us to gain our confidence through Him and that we are all special and have unique gifts, etc. It is really a cute series, etc. Gigi is all about being the princess and everything is "royal" to her :) Grace can sit and "read" these books to herself for an hour.

Nursing Here and There

I have had quiet a strange start to my new job here in Hot Springs. I knew I would have high expectations of my job here after my previous job. The last 4 years in Louisville, my job at Baptist Hospital East was awesome! I really couldn't have asked for a better group of staff on our floor and it was staffed well mostly all the time, and just a great place to work. (The ONLY thing that I could have done without at times, was the night shift). This job here in Hot Springs started out really well. It seemed in Hospital Orientation that they were very serious about the Christian ministry of the hospital, etc. etc. I learned quickly after getting on the floor that is not exactly the case. The hospital is a business and of course we want to give our pt.'s great care but cutting cost really affects "the ministry" we are able to provide. The stress to cut cost became evident in the first day, I believe, on the floor when my Nurse Manager was getting on to our secretary for sitting out too many paper cups in the kitchen because she said that people will take more than they need when people do that and cups cost us "x" amount of dollars every month. Don't get me wrong, my job isn't HORRIBLE, and I AM thankful for it! It provides a great living for our family, even at part-time. It has also got better as the week has went on. People are getting a little bit friendlier and we were also staffed better at the end of the week.

A couple of weeks back our census was way down and I was concerned that I wouldn't get enough hours (working prn) that I needed. I ended up getting canceled for a low-census day right before our trip to AL and so I didn't work any that week. Then, we got back last Saturday night from AL and on Sunday morning they were calling me and wanting to know if I wanted to come in and work as a PCT (nursing assistant) because they didn't have one and the census was up. Granted this would be my FIRST day out of orientation (without Preceptor) and I was PCT to 14 patients!! The next day I worked as LPN because that was their only need. (They do Team nursing here, and that means the LPN is the med nurse, and the RN does the assessments, blood draws, IVs, transfusions, taking care of any problems, and sometimes admissions, and discharges.) On Thursday, I was FINALLY working as RN and then we were doing primary care because we had no PCT or LPN. So we did it all! Needless to say, CRAZY days!! I ended up agreeing to work my 4th 12 hour shift on Friday, and thankfully it was a MUCH better day. We were staffed well that day.

It has just been an adjustment to me because our staffing grid in Louisville was much lower and on Day shift we would have 2 or usually 3, nursing assistants for 14 patients! Does that tell you anything?!!

Anyways, it seems when our census is up they actually staff better. Overall, like I said, I am still very thankful for my job!

In the midst of all of this, we were nursing Grace at home! Grace developed a eye infection last Sunday and we realized it after I had already agreed to work. So Adam, had to stay home with her from church because the Dr. was calling it pink eye at first. By Tues. we went back to the doctor because she was running a high fever starting on Monday night and was complaining of her ears too. We finally saw a good Dr. at the pediatric clinic and found out she had STREP THROAT and an ear infection, and the eye infection. Thankfully, after getting on an antibiotic by mouth, she has quickly recovered. She was ONE SICK GIRL for a few days though!:(

It's been good to enjoy a few good off days as a family and get ready for VBS that is coming up next weekend!

Sweet Home Alabama

We left last Tues to go to AL through this past Saturday. We had lots on the agenda and lots of fun too! We stayed at Adam's parents the first two nights and then at Mom and Gary's the second two nights. We enjoyed the peace of Adam's parents' little quiet street with his family and then spent time with my Grandma before she left for Mobile, AL on Wednesday for a trip. The next day we spent with Adam's family getting to see our brand new niece Amanda who was just born the Friday before! Grace loved playing with Vann and was so happy that "Vann can talk now!!" :) They played good together!! I also managed to squeeze in a couple of shopping trips with Mom;) and me, Mom, Adam, Grace, and Emily got to enjoy the Coosa River at some friends of our family (Dave and Marti's place). It is fixed up so nice down there with a sand bar, swings, a slide going into the river, etc. etc. I was shocked at how brave Grace was! She waded right into the water and both the girls braved the slide with Dave catching them before going into the water and loved the swings. Allie (our Pomeranian) even waded in for a swim! I couldn't believe it! I would have never thought she would do that but she was very cute doggy peddling in the river! The weather was just right and the rain even held off for us to have some time down there. That evening, Mom cooked for us and my step-sisters Kelly and Tracey and their families. I surprised Mom with a cake and balloons for her 60th Birthday that is TOMORROW! I knew we wouldn't be there so I wanted to do something special since this is a very special day. We also visited more friends, and family.

On Friday, we met back up with the Brown's for our nephew Kyle's graduation. He graduated High School that night and we all went to Red Lobster to eat. We were very proud that he graduated with Honors of an A AVERAGE! By this time Grace was exhausted with the trip so we let her stay with Debby and Gary to rest while we went and visited our best of friends Eric and Shea and their baby, Naomie. It is ALWAYS great to see them! There is nothing like good 'old friends' who love you no matter what!!:) We always laugh and have so much fun catching up.

The next day we had to say goodbye but Grace and Emily had one last chance to play for a bit before we left. They wanted to splash around in the kiddie pool for a while and that's what they did!

Loving this Summer time fun and thankful for a very smooth and safe trip! Grace was wonderful in the car considering she had about a 5 minute nap on the way back. I caught a pic of one of her exhausted cat naps on the way home :)

The slideshow got a bit out of order but you get the idea..

Party Time

The past couple of weeks have been action packed with lots of fun! 2 weeks ago today was Josiah's 2nd Birthday and he had a Veggie Tale's party at the church. He is her new little friend from church and John and Crystal's son. Grace had lots of fun and loved all the veggie tales decor. Check out their Veggie Tale's cake. Too cute!

Soaking It Up

We are LOVING the warm weather. There is nothing like warm sunny days.. together with my girl and especially as a family!! Over the past month, we have been taking advantage of being outside. Adam took Grace, with the Graves to Entergy Park (while I worked last Fri.) that is on Lake Hamilton. Last week I took Grace to Family Park. Then, yesterday, Grace and I went with Crystal (Josiah and Zoe), Jessica (Zoe), and Kallie to the Mommy and Me at ChickFil-A for breakfast and then to Hollywood Park.

This first pic is from last week. The next pic is from yesterday. Her bud Josiah, new friend Zoe, and another little guy that was just at the park:)




We also got Grace a new kiddie pool this year. (Our other pool didn't make the trip here). We had been looking for one of these hard plastic pools with the slide and the local Walmart finally got one in and she just LOVES it!! Especially the slide. You can see her excitement in the pic and in the video (:

(By the way, this two piece bathing suit is left over from last year. It should be more of a tankini but this is the only bathing suit we had until we went out and bought her one) Ha ha!






So on Tuesday, we are leaving to go "home" to AL for a few days or so. This is the first time we've been there since early December so we are ready!! Grace couldn't be any more excited!! We will get to see our BRAND NEW baby neice, our nephew Kyle graduates High School, and many other family and friends that we all miss! Pray for safe travels!!

Three

Grace turned 3 almost a month ago on April 12th. I wanted to write about what Grace is doing at 3 years old.

Grace,
You are still our sweet little Grace. You are such a smart little girl and are a girl of A LOT of words. You literally talk all of the time and are quiet loud! Our church members, joke when you come in because your presence is known as soon as you walk in the door. You enjoy music and enjoy singing!! Often you want us to turn up the music LOUD!!:) You LOVE church and LOVE people. You thrive on the attention and recognition of others. You are genuinely our princess and you really think you are a princess too. You love any and all princess toys, movies, etc. You LOVE to dress up, jewelry and all and want to wear a dress/ skirt just about every time you walk out the door!

You do really well pointing and counting and singing your ABC's. You already know your Bible stories and can tell about them. You LOVE LOVE LOVE books! You can sit and read to yourself for an hour straight. Your imagination is unbelievable! You love to be Mommy's little helper and help out cooking in the kitchen, cleaning around the house, watering flowers, feeding Allie (our indoor dog), etc. etc. You meet friends very easily no matter where you go! You love to be outdoors.

You do really great with your potty training except for #2~ we're still working on that:) You love to snuggle and you are very loving!!

You are your Momma's girl when it comes to Ranch dressing, peanut M&M's, and spicy food.
You are your Daddy's girl when it comes to ALL things sweet and very little veggies!!

You are quiet a funny little girl and we love everything about you, Grace! You are beautiful inside and out and we are trying to teach you that what is most beautiful is being pleasing to God!

We are so BLESSED to call you ours and on this Mother's Day.. I reflect on the most precious gift I've been given on this Earth!:)